Checkmate
by DrakeTheTraveller
Summary: Ancient conspiracies, rampant terrorism, and lethal espionage, the average every day for a SPARTAN ONI operative. No matter where you go, some things always stay the same, as Spartan B170 soon discovers after he is thrown into the unknown. Once a pawn for the office, B170 now must contend with new factions pushing old agendas. And he will not stand to be a chess piece any longer.
1. Chapter 1

Not Easily Broken

Twenty-seven red dots… twenty-seven targets… twenty-seven obstacles he could not allow to stand. The inevitability of this conclusion came to him on the thirty-third day on this world, month unknown, year uncertain. It was commendable, in his eyes, that he had restrained this bloody path for so long, an unusual tactic given his record. It was, to be honest, more his lack of knowledge than any pacifistic nature, that had initially stayed his wrath. But the pestering harassment of those red dots that pursued him so unceasingly was a grievance he could no longer stand, an irritant upon his vision that he planned to efficiently and violently _rectify_.

He elected well, the location where he would make his stand. A large tor, speckled with boulders that would make for good cover and even better concealment. The edifice of rock that became his chosen bulwark, was the best positioned and best suited for the grim task ahead of him. A quick search of his ammunition stores was performed as he crouched into position, three magazines, six shells, and nine rounds, three grenades of human origin, and a fourth of alien technology.

He concluded judiciously that this battle would not stay a long distance affair. The blame for his depleted ammunition could be laid upon events previous, what he was certain would become invaluable footage once he reestablished contact with JSOC, for now however, he found himself in a position that was… suboptimal.

Nevertheless he was prepared for such eventualities.

He would not die, not without a fight.

His location picked, his arsenal readied, and his resolve reaffirmed, all that was left, was to wait.

The anticipation of combat was a deep-rooted and familiar sensation. Where most men would find their nerves racked and their will tested, he felt something of a longing for the increase in his heart rate, the sudden perspiration and the rush of endorphins as he anticipated the onset of an engagement. It was a reminder of his mortality, and the only moment where he could honestly feel at least the tiniest notion that he was alive.

It was not deceptive to say, that in some small way, he _lived _for this, to be pitted against an adversary, to fight to survive. The aggression was in his blood, a byproduct of his vocation and his very existence. He lived for nothing else but the volatility of war. This was not a surprise, not to him or his brothers and sisters. Like they, he had been raised this way for a reason, the desperation of mankind made manifest. But they had not been the answer of salvation.

Only the substitute.

His grip tightened on his rifle, the creak of the metal sharpening his focus back to present and far more immediate concerns. Those that hunted him could not be taken so halfheartedly. If they possessed the determination to chase their prey for a month, trekking through rough, hostile terrain and yet still able to endure his relentless pace, then they were not to be underestimated.

A look to his motion tracker was followed by the instinctive, if slight clenching of his jaw, as the meters counted down.

The wait was in silence.

1200 meters… 900 meters… 600 meters… 300 meters… The initial approach of the hostile contacts lasted perhaps a full hour, the twenty six dots approaching in a sedate, organized advance of two separate columns of thirteen. This in itself was valuable information. His adversaries were not only trained, but patient, functioning in two individual units that had been, judging from their speed, able to determine that their prey had gone to ground. He could most likely expect squad level tactics and a coordinated assault covered by overlapping lanes of supportive fire as they closed in on his position.

Difficult, but not insurmountable, he decided as he rearranged his position accordingly and placed his gaze upon the tree line, down below at the foot of the rock covered hilltop.

A further ten minutes later and at 190 meters he had his first look at his pursuers. They were not unfamiliar, at least to what he had seen on this planet thus far. The stark white armor had been replaced by a drab mix of dark greens and light browns, more suited to the local arboreal environment than the barren tundra he had found himself in on his first day stranded upon this world, but the resemblance to the soldiers he encountered in his first half-conscious, concussion addled firefight was undeniable.

His somewhat cohesive theory seemed that much more plausible as he deliberated on this development. Clearly the assault at Site Epsilon and the ensuing battle through the ruins, had deeper ramifications then he had first realized.

Insurrectionists then… though none like he had fought before. This particular cell seemed far more organized, less para, more military. If they had been able to track him this far and for this long, then they were certainly military trained and from what he had seen before he left the sight of the first conflict, their gear was nearly on par with modern UNSC battle dress. If they could act so openly then his assumption of the inexistence of UNSC authority on this world must also be correct.

He took this news grimly, as he realized his efforts to return to allied space would be a significant challenge. Nevertheless, such concerns were not prevalent to his current situation. First he would need to eliminate the clear and present danger ahead of him. As ready as he would ever be, he sighted in on his first target and squeezed the trigger just as the hostile squad began to exit the tree line.

The bark of his assault rifle was the only warning the enemy received before their point man's helmet caved inwards. The lead insurgent's head snapped back from the force of the high velocity round, spraying the one behind him with a mist of liquefied grey matter. The soldier's attempt to cry out an alarm was muffled by the proceeding bullet that cut through her larynx.

Both bodies dropped before the squad finally reacted.

Numerous loud and vicarious expletives filled the air as the remaining infantrymen threw themselves into the closest available cover. Only to panic when they heard several metallic objects clatter down the slope. Four jumped out of cover to escape the ensuing chaos, but were cut down by a concise, accurate burst of gunfire.

A trio of rapid detonations tore across the hill side, showering everything in scorched dirt, heated rock, and razor sharp shrapnel, claiming further tallies against the opposition. Looking down upon the destruction with a partially satisfied grunt, he slipped back into cover as a fusillade of multicolored bullets spat through the smoke of upturned dirt and debris. He weathered the barrage silently, studying his motion tracker and planning while he waited for the inevitable pause of a reload.

Silence fell a moment later, broken by the scattered announcements he had expected, and it was at that moment that he burst from cover. He took off down the slope, his visor flicking as it switched modes, bathing his vision in dark greys and bright whites. His rifle snapped between the targets lit up by infrared, the weapon thundering in bursts as he scythed down hostiles one at a time. More voices were raised in confusion and fear as he advanced. Half blinded by the smoke left in the wake of the explosions, and continuously put off balance by his relentless aggression, his adversaries put up a halfhearted resistance at best.

His shoulder jerked back as he was struck from the side by a panicked volley to his left, but that proved only a minor nuisance as his shields flickered and the bar at the top of his HUD dropped four percent. Zeroing in on the first of the opposition to land a solid blow, he rewarded the man with a four round burst into his sternum.

His shields fell a further thirty percent as the remaining insurgents rallied and laid down a withering torrent of ammunition in the four seconds he was exposed before rolling behind a rock. He did not feel impressed. It was not difficult to land a target that stood nearly three meters in height.

What did incite his curiosity however, were the effects the attack had upon his armor. He glanced down in abject bewilderment, at the flicker of flames that licked at his shields, and the haze of frost lingering around his legs.

That… was definitely something new.

He could have believed the explanation for the fire, incendiary ammunition, while not common, was not unheard of. However, the existence of specialized cryogenic ammo was something beyond current UNSC, and therefor human, development.

Before he could give the concept any more thought, his motion tracker alerted him that the enemy was making a push. The remaining red dots on his radar approached from multiple directions and at running speed. Their intent to overwhelm him was not lost to the soldier, who quickly put away his rifle and equipped his knife and sidearm. Leaping from behind cover, he took a moment to survey his surroundings, eight in front, one on either side, and three more circling to get behind him. No doubt they thought to entrap and bring him down. The plan was well concocted and would have worked against any soldier.

Unfortunately for them, they had miscalculated.

He was not a soldier.

He was a spartan.

His shields flared as he took incoming fire from every direction, but he was able to endure the storm of metal as he charged forwards with a growl, crossing the forty foot span between him and his first target in less than four seconds.

The spartan could not see the expression of the first man to fall to his blade, not behind that bizarre half-helm, but he could at least see the insurgent's mouth open wide in a gasp as he inserted his blade in-between the man's fourth and fifth rib, plunging the foot long serrated edge into his heart.

Forty five percent.

His shields dropped in another hefty increment as he felt the butt of a rifle crack against his back. The spartan turned about, noticed the upraised rifle held in the arms of a woman belting profanities at him, and delivered a crushing elbow into her neck. A head rolled off its shoulders as he cut through flesh with the sheer force of the impact, and he grabbed the headless corpse, pulling it to his chest to absorb the lion's share of the gunfire directed at him.

Combat knife still buried in the torso of his first victim, the spartan lifted the body and added it to his organic barricade, pushing through the hail of ammunition being thrown at him. Sighting the next soldier on his list, he dropped the second corpse, pressed his greave against the first, and kicked it into the next closest insurrectionist. The man screamed as he was thrown back by the bullet riddled husk of his comrade, but his suffering was assuaged as the spartan fired his handgun and put a round through his skull. The magnum's magazine was emptied thereafter, eight bullets finding homes in eight heads as he methodically scythed down his attackers one by one.

His pistol emptied and smoking, the spartan returned it to his thigh as he turned to face the last insurgents. His shields, having reached the cusp of breaking, recharged in a crackling haze of golden energy.

The two men looked upon the towering colossus of metal that had butchered his way through two squads of their finest special forces, and showered it in bullets till their rifles emptied.

The spartan stepped through the barrage, intercepted the drawn knife of the first of the last men, and punched his fist through his armor and out the back of his torso. The guerilla fighter fell back, gurgling on the blood filling his throat as he collapsed. His compatriot lunged forward, melee weapon drawn and a rictus of hate written on his face.

The spartan let the blow land, the knife's blade snapping against nearly a foot of solid titanium and reverse engineered alien technology. As a courtesy he did not let the man suffer, grabbing the comparatively dwarfish insurgent by the chin, the spartan swiftly wrung his neck with the audible shatter of vertebrae.

He stepped away to watch the corpse as it bowed, sinking to the dirt in a heap of severed nerves. And after taking a moment, he lifted his calculative gaze to survey the battleground. Twenty-seven soldiers, put down in less than five minutes.

Not his best record, but certainly not his worst.

One less insurrectionist patrol to stand in his way, and with that he could press onwards without interruption.

The spartan allowed himself a few minutes of leeway to secure the site and police weapons and ammunition, a luxury he did not have the first time he emerged in that frost speckled forest. Among the bodies he found a few days' worth of MREs, a number of rifles in relatively pristine condition, numerous magazines for them, and oddly enough, a broadsword lying next to the corpse of an unusually dressed soldier torn apart by the blast from his grenades. He was confused to see such an archaic weapon amidst what was obviously advanced equipment, but figured the man must have been an officer of some kind, or perhaps some manner of enthusiast. In the end he paid it little mind, grabbing the blade and securing it to his back amidst his rifle, shotgun, and the other firearms he had acquired. It was a little on the substantial side for a portable arsenal, but considering his position, he figured he'd need the extra firepower.

On the way out, he grabbed an assortment of peculiarly colored cylinders he could only assume were grenades, attaching them to his waist as he journeyed back into the forest. Eventually he reasoned he'd find a settlement of some kind, whether or not it had a spaceport however, was up for debate. So far he had not seen the indomitable tower of metal and human ingenuity found on most colonies, but he figured that perhaps the planet was not large enough or sufficiently economically valuable to establish a space elevator.

Either way, he would find a way back.

Spartan B170 did not give up easily.

* * *

"General… we've lost contact with both squads… and Specialist Stark." The communications operator looked up from his station, his expression halfway between unbelieving dread and abject shock. Not five minutes after they reported making contact under fire, they were silenced. And judging from the operator's sudden paleness, their broadcasts before the end were entirely unpleasant.

Showing his disbelief, while unprofessional, was something General Ironwood allowed to pass without remark. After all, he as well was in a state of lesser astonishment. Twenty-six of his finest soldiers, and one of his best specialists… gone. A month spent hunting an unknown hostile contact that had slaughtered their way through an entire unit stationed on Vale's borders, and they had nothing but failure to show for it. What had already been an insulting blow upon Atlas' credibility to protect its allies, would no doubt be made worse when the news eventually found out that their retaliatory efforts had been repulsed so utterly.

But that did not rank high up on Ironwood's concerns. Right now he wanted to know what could evade a task force for more than a month through wild terrain crawling with Grimm, and then so utterly crush the best he had to offer.

"Damn politics." He growled to himself, his remaining hand of flesh and bone clenched tight as he suppressed his frustration. If it wasn't for Valian council fearmongering, he could have done this properly, with knights, airships, and armored support. Now, twenty-seven people were dead, and all of Remnant would blame this on altesian incompetence.

The damage to intercountry relations would not be insignificant, not to mention the loss of faith in Atlas superiority.

What a clusterfuck of a situation, and so close to the Vytal Festival…

People were going to lose their careers over this. After all, someone would have to be blamed for this disaster, and it wouldn't be the right ones.

It never is.

"General?"

Ironwood curbed his rising anger under professional stoicism as he turned to his communications operator. Now was exactly not the time for emotional interference. "Contact _The Valiant_, I want our fallen soldiers found and brought back home, with full honors." Damn whatever the council would say about airships and political borders, those men and women deserved that much.

"Of course, Sir."

Glaring out the bridge window of his personal flagship, the altesian general set his thoughts on determining who, or what, could have done this.

However this might end, Atlas would have retribution.

* * *

It was four days before the spartan finally decided to cut back on his pace and take a few moments to rest, setting himself up underneath a small copse of trees for a few hours until inevitably resuming his travels. His objective, locate any sign of greater human habitation on this world.

B170, while unexhausted, decided to remain prudent considering the indeterminable nature of his future. There was no telling how long he would be forced to stay upon this colony, or the force strength of the insurrectionist presence whose existence he had violently established in his last gunfight.

In addition, he was uncertain as to how much time he had bought for himself, or how furious the inevitable reprisal would be. Even then he was not so much worried about conflict, as he was in figuring out how long he could stretch his current supplies. Had he been a degree more… discreet, he may have been able to recover more than what he had from the two units of innies. Bearing in mind that he had not taken that into account, he was lucky to have scrounged enough food and ammo to stay mission capable for… perhaps two weeks if he was judicious with the utilization of his confiscated provisions and ammunition.

B170, a frown adorning his stern expression, disconnected the seals on his helmet and set it down on his thigh. He paused, for the briefest of moments, to feel the cool evening breeze as it caressed his cheek, and his frown shifted, by the slightest of margins, into the fleeting phantom of a smile. He recalled his home, an unassuming colony on the edge of humanity's frontier. Insofar as his memory could recollect, it had not been much to look at initially, a fairly recent establishment for colonial occupation, no more than a handful of larger settlements scattered across acres of as of yet milled forestland. Despite its relatively primitive trappings, the largely Germanic population had arrived to something of a curiosity. Climate perfectly suited for human habitation, with a percentage of oceans to landmass that made even Earth First supremacists envious, New Serenity was well on its way to garden world certification. Most had likened it to a new Arcadia, and the future had looked bright for the colonists that resided there.

At least, until March 5th, 2540, when a single Covenant supercarrier jumped in system and engaged the entirety of the 12th patrol fleet.

What had taken humanity decades to build, they glassed in hours.

The spartan's jaw tightened, and the ghostly smile vanished as he banished the memory and the phantom scent of crystalized sand, focusing instead on searching the provisions he had taken from the insurrectionist hunting party, welcoming the mindless distraction the task provided.

Despite his role as a spartan-III, there was at least one unifying factor that connected him to the rest of his un-augmented brethren. There were few members of humanity that had not lost something to the inexhaustible march of the Covenant war machine, and most of those people resided deep in the heart of the core systems. Like most, his loss was reflected in the heart and soul of the human race, no more special than anyone else that lived and breathed and fought for survival. Yet he was luckier than the average individual, in that he had been given training and equipment that did not just offer him a chance at vengeance, but the rare opportunity to hurt the enemy far more deeply than they had him. There were not many who could boast such a privilege.

B170 glanced at the packaged meal he had selected from within the small rucksack he carried on his shoulder. MENU 8 SHREDDED BARBEQUE BEEF stood out in large, blocky letters, though the spartan was skeptical as to how truthful a promise that was. As he skimmed the description and readied to tear the seal, he was given pause at the lettering printed upon the bottom.

ATLAS GOVERNMENT PROPERTY  
COMMERCIAL RESALE IS UNLAWFUL

"Atlas…" B170 whispered to himself, his tone curious as he absorbed this most recent revelation. The ache in his stomach faded from his attention, and the original purpose of the meal was forgotten as the spartan began to question.

He'd foraged off insurrectionist supplies before on numerous occasions. The insurrection was a rebellion by every meaning of the word, and a poorly led one at that. They did not have access to manufactories. They did not build their own ships or weapons. They could not even feed the misguided civilians that flocked to their banner. The very food in the bellies of their warriors was provisioned by the UNSC's unwilling benefaction, stolen from critical supply vessels traveling to the Covenant theatre and doled out to the scattered cells littering human space like pockets of tenacious vermin. The rebellion may have been born out of good intention, a desperate bid to secure social change and freedom from oppression. But there was nothing admirable about their cause. They were less than filth, a virulent plague that suckled from a struggling humanity, more roving bandits than soldiers.

He knew them as parasites.

B170 contemplated the ramifications this simple meal packet represented in a ponderous silence. Either the insurrection was becoming centralized, what was a deeply concerning hypothesis, or this was the revelation of something far more sinister.

The spartan set down the unopened package, and in the same motion, reached to his side, drawing the blade he had taken from the corpse of that strange soldier. He studied the longsword, 50 inches of pristine metal and superb craftsmanship, something that had not been pressed into shape by an assembly line, but created by the hands of a legitimate tradesman. This was not a weapon forged in a gritty, makeshift workshop on a backwater colony world.

Laying the sword carefully at his side, he retrieved a rifle taken from the insurrectionist hunting party, studying both congruently with an increasingly perplexed eye. Delving further into this growing mystery, he extracted an unspent round from the magazine and cross-examined it with the UNSC ammunition Index. The time spent was a mere fraction of a passing moment as he browsed through the entire database in his head. The answer he came upon however, was a great deal slower on the uptake.

Unknown manufacturer, unregistered caliber… more than that the casing was pressed out of brass tinged a slight red, with a transparent bar running down the length of the body, the propellant within radiating an unusual, bright crimson. The bullet itself at the tip was an even darker red than the material of the cartridge, and the spartan's bafflement continued to escalate as he attempted to digest this series of unrelenting discoveries.

The soldiers set to hunt him, armored and armed with equipment comparable to UNSC quality standards, possessing coordinated, army level tactics and wielding divisive technology. There was any number of examples that came to his thoughts as he contemplated this strangest development. Unfamiliar ammunitions, foreign combat apparel… a sword, a weapon that had been discarded from traditional warfare for more than a thousand years, brought to prominence only by the arrival of the Covenant. And there was no man alive foolish enough to think they could possess the same survivability as a sangheili zealot.

The spartan was… confused.

What exactly was he dealing with here?

As B170 sat against the tree, contemplating the totality of his findings, something whispered across the peripherals of his thoughts, a foreign emotion that he had not experienced in little more than a decade. The sentiment was an unwelcomed source of discontent within the twisted snare of jumbled thought that had once been an immaculate bulwark of stalwart faith.

Doubt crafted itself an uninvited residence in his consciousness, the tinniest flicker of misgiving that susurrated treacherous ideals in his head.

_This is not the work of the insurrection._

B170 banished the disloyal suggestion from his mind before it could settle in and take root, reaffirming his resolve with unrelenting dedication and a reminder of his purpose. There was no human power higher than the UNSC. There existed no human force unaffiliated that was not inherently mutinous. These findings were simply the result of stumbling across a well-organized and highly motivated insurrectionist cell.

He would not be seduced by wild theory and lunatic conspiracy.

A flashing light, the soft, pale blue flickering from within his removed helmet, stole his attention from his heavy thoughts, the steady rhythm of its flutter crushing through his pondering with all the subtly and grace of a scorpion MBT wading into a sea of Covenant infantry, alerting him to an unseen danger.

His motion tracker erupted into a silent scream of flashing color.

The spartan's reaction was swift.

B170 popped his knee up, bouncing his headpiece into the air, and as his helmet sailed upwards, he snatched it from its descent and donned it with an effortless, practiced efficiency. His naked vision was once again assailed by the numerous lights and notifications of his HUD's operating system, and he took only a moment to re-familiarize himself with the stream of constant data continuously scrolling across his visor, and more importantly, the circular radar at the leftmost corner of his vision.

_Contact, twenty meters northwest. _

His head snapped in that direction, even as he dropped the blade and secured both gauntlets around the unfamiliar rifle he had been examining. His armored digits tightened briefly upon the grip, and he felt his jaw tighten as the tracker target revealed itself.

Pale eyes widened in incredulity by the lowest of fractions as he watched the large creature step out from the scrub brush. Two burning coals of irradiant orange matching his stare as it revealed itself in its entirety. The towering monolith of a beast, its hide swathed in thick, matted fur darker than the blackest nights, and propelled by two massive digitigrade legs, appeared to pause upon noticing the bewildered soldier propped against the far tree, seeming to be as startled by the encounter as he was. Whatever expression it might have made was foiled by the encasement of bone around its muzzle, as bright and pure as illegal ivory, marred only by strange red markings.

B170 was at a loss.

He studied the creature, tried to rationalize what he was seeing, perhaps some peculiar local fauna or… well he could not think of what else this thing could be. It certainly was not included in the Covenant identification field catalogue. Though bipedal, he doubted its sapience, considering it lacked any visual apparel or tools.

Slowly, carefully, he rose from his seated posture, the vaguely wolf-like creature flicking an ear as it watched the armored figure move to stand. And upon noticing the nearly foot long claws sprouting from the tips of its fingers, he raised his rifle halfway into a defensive stance, ready to snap fire or throw himself into cover as the situation required. Alien species had the irritating habit of subverting expectations. And this particular beast already looked par the course. He had fought magelekgolo pairs that were smaller than this creature.

A dazzling array of lights blinked into existence at the bottom of his vision, the thick undergrowth surrounding the animal now shimmering with movement in concurrence.

This… thing, whatever it was, had brought company.

B170 slowly withdrew from his semi-prone position and took a single step back in retreat, pressing his back firmly against the solidity of the tree towards his rear, securing for himself at least one venue he could not be assaulted from. The unfamiliar firearm in his gauntlets was weighed once more, the spartan working quickly to acquaint himself with the weapon. He would have preferred the MA37, but did not wish to risk making an untoward movement that might incite violence in the growing pack of lupine creatures that swelled from the darkness.

As the seconds ticked onwards in silence, the spartan grew more and more concerned, the combined mass of these wolven bipeds increasing from the initial visitor to a full twenty. However the ones that followed were smaller, if only by a few feet, and seemed to only have a sparse pattern of unusual plating that sprouted in patches across their unanimously dark furred hides.

The spartan frowned at his situation.

What was already difficult had now become… suboptimal.

There was a sensation inside him, something deep in his instincts, which told him that this would not end peacefully. But then again, when did such things ever? There was a pervading sense of inherent… _wrongness_ about these animals. They were unalike any natural beast he had ever seen, and even the Covenant did not provoke within him the same instinctual aversion that coiled in his stomach as he looked upon these creatures.

Not that his supposition mattered in the seconds preceding his uneasy musing.

The first step in the devolution of events began as the lead beast in this pack stepped forward, its nose wrinkling as it inhaled deeply in his direction. The spartan watched as its muzzle quivered, opening to reveal a row of pearlescent fangs larger than most dinner knives, and throttled the trigger of the unfamiliar rifle.

The weapon's recoil was not insignificant. He felt the stock brush against his shoulder as the firearm erupted, spewing fiery bullets at his first target. His accuracy was impeccable, and though the spray pattern from the barrel was less precise than he had hoped, nearly a dozen rounds still struck true, smashing through the bizarre bony carapace of the creature's skull before pushing out the back of its head.

B170 did not waste time in savoring his success, and was simply relieved that whatever these things things were, they could be killed. The spartan swept his rifle from side to side, showering the entire huddle of beasts in incendiary ammunition till the receiver clicked dry. Only seconds had passed since he initially opened fire, but whatever kind of munition this weapon utilized, he was marginally impressed by its efficiency against relatively soft targets. The rounds bit deep, and the flames adhered easily to their dark fur, taking to the hairy pelt like a matchstick to gasoline.

He was not so much impressed, however, by how quickly these creatures adapted. The mass of wolf-like beasts leaped into action, seemingly in unison. Charging through the gunfire with zero reservation or care about their individual welfare. And suddenly B170 found himself harassed by more than a dozen flaming giant bipedal wolves. This was inherently unexpected, and caught the spartan momentarily out of position, as he had yet to attempt to create distance between himself and the hostiles.

He had fully anticipated that they would attempt to avoid the bullets, an instinct any rational being would most certainly possess. However, the suicidal carelessness depicted by these creatures was reflective of Covenant grunt swarming tactics, and similarly as effective.

The spartan grunted as the first beast collided with his torso, slamming him into the tree with enough pressure to force a shallow hiss from his lips. Unappreciative of the assault, he returned the gesture with a solid uppercut, his armored fist striking its chin so forcefully that its head disconnected from its spine and bounced off a tree limb up above. A fountain of blackish gore propelled from the severed flesh of its neck, and B170's shields flared as he was drenched in brackish fluid. The pitch colored wetness sprayed across his visor, obscuring his vision for precious seconds while his shields burned away at the liquid.

In his sudden blindness, claws racked violently across his neck. The energy barrier protecting his armor sputtered as the leaden paw hit with all the power of a dump truck. B170, his arms pressed tight against his chest under the weight of body of the first creature to die, found his movements constricted, and released the rifle before dropping to the floor. Throwing himself across the scattered camp items he had gathered previously, the spartan grabbed the first weapon that he could reach and turned his roll into a summersault, his gauntlet clasped tightly around the longsword.

He reentered the melee with a savage sideswipe, the heavy blade effortlessly cleaving through the torso of the closest animal. And within the span of a second, pertaining retentions of the past were selectively chosen from his subconscious and drawn to the fore, and the heft of the archaic weapon in his hand grew intimately familiar.

The strange wolven beast flopped into neatly bisected halves as the spartan tucked the sword in close, repelling the clawed paw that slammed into his chest. In the same motion, B170 raised his left arm, catching the gaping maw of another creature with his bracer. Shields collapsed and fangs shattered as it clamped down on his armor to no effect, the pride of human metallurgy proving impervious to the jaw strength of a primitive animal.

With a vicious head-butt, B170 flung himself into a violent counteroffensive, crushing the skull of the animal that had tried to bite his arm off, and cuffing the next so hard with the flat of the blade that its neck swiveled and _snapped_, dropping the creature to the ground. Yet any gains he had made were swiftly overtaken as the creatures pressed in closer, climbing over their dead in a mindless desire to put an end to him.

The spartan, suppressing his surprise once more at their continuously unfeeling tenacity, curled both gauntlets around the hilt of the longsword and resolved to meet their callousness with unabashed ferocity.

Time became a meaningless construct in the battle that ensued, its passing unrecognized by the spartan as he cleaved and severed, punctured, and stabbed, smashed and crushed, massacring his way through the ostensibly growing numbers that emerged from the forest around him. The animals seemed like moths drawn to a flame, and as his bloodlust climbed, his composure waned. In the beginning it was irritation, their numbers did not appear to relent, and he grew ever exasperated at their apparent infinitude.

Yet as the body count grew and they showed no sign of abating, his irritability quickly awakened the boiling rage that dwelled at the precipice of his calm rationality. Sword strokes lost their finesse, and the strength behind his enormous strikes grew wild and untamed. A blow aimed to behead, would not only slice through a neck, but continue in a wide arc to cleave the tree and several others of its brethren behind it. A fist aimed at a skull, would plunge through a cranium and shatter the torso below. And as the spartan's rage inflamed, his efficiency eroded. No longer did he attack with the intent to swiftly and expediently eliminate targets. His assault was now aimed at causing hurt more than ending lives, a downwards spiral of professionalism that was slowly being subsumed by unreasonable hatred.

He was only brought out of his descent by two jarring factors.

B170, his sword buried in the gut of the third lupine monstrosity to bear an overlapping quilt of armored plating, took a step back to kick the beast off his blade, when he noticed something significant. He nearly paused in surprise, before blocking an attack coming from his left, swiftly releasing his blade from the insides of his first opponent, to cleave the second from shoulder to waist.

A dense black fog had raised during the battle, slowly at first, faint enough to be ignored over pressing concerns. But now it had thickened to a point of undeniable visibility. And as he stepped over the lifeless body of another lupine beast, the reason for its existence readily made itself apparent.

The corpses of the fallen were… _disintegrating_.

Struck insensate by the utterly unexpected peculiarity, the absolute impossibility of this revelation allowed his rationality to quickly reassert itself. And as his awareness returned so did his notice of detail, and with that, his uncertainty mounted.

The ink black miasma around him was born from the fading bodies of the slain, their sheer number creating a fog of diminishing particles as they receded into the ether. The corpses of the dead were quite literally vanishing before his eyes. And the blood, the thick blackish ooze that had covered his armor, no longer decorated the overlapping plates of his Mjolnir. The pristine, albeit scratched and dented sheets of titanium, were bereft of any trace of his adversaries.

The spartan dismissed the brief and irrational disappointment he felt at that realization, in favor of more pressing issues. Calm prudence became his ally, as the spartan effected a controlled withdrawal from the immediate combat zone, his longsword sweeping out only to eliminate any creature that drew too close. The lack of crucial information was enough for him to look for an escape. As ineffective and objectively harmless as these animals were to him, he could not ignore the facts. For whatever reason, their bodies did not adhere to any recognized natural rule of causality.

As far as he was aware of, he could be killing the same beasts over and over again, the wolf-like beings simply vanishing and reforming deeper in the forest. If that was the case, then there would be no victory here.

B170 swung his sword in a wide elliptical arc, the blade cleaving through the entire first row of unnatural abominations vying for his death. Using the brief respite this act purchased, he turned and holstered the weapon to his back, readying to sprint as far and as fast as he could away from this immediate vicinity. Whatever was happening, he could hypothesize on its ramification after he had created suitable distance between himself and these… things.

Wasting little time, he sprang into action, his heavy plated boots eating up meter after meter as he threw all the energy he had left, into disengaging.

The savage roar and immense paw that slammed into his chest and sent him hurtling across the forest, did much to dissuade his current course of action.

B170 could hear, more than feel, the sodden crack of broken tree branches as he was sent hurdling through the undergrowth. The initial strike, and proceeding propulsion into a varied a sort of arboreal pillars, disrupted his focus with the rapid impacts, and had seen to it that his shields were fried when he finally finished tumbling to the dirt.

The spartan rolled aside instantly, barely avoiding another overhead attack that might have put a considerable dent into his thoracic plate. Coming to a kneeling position with his longsword already retrieved and swinging towards this newest threat, he watched as the blade cut deep into the midsection of a towering ursine creature that must have had a good six feet on him.

The animal released a bellowing cry of pain, before its paw was sent backhanded across his helmet. The spartan's head whipped violently to the side, the ceramic ossification of his bone structure narrowly preventing his spine from shattering as he was once more sent flying.

Thankfully this interval was brief, and his flight was quickly arrested by the helpful solidity of a nearby tree. The tree itself however, was not so fortunate, and its existence as a cohesive log of wood was brought to an end as a fully armored spartan slammed into its trunk and reduced the once mighty arbor into kindling.

Now slightly above irritated, the spartan crouched low, dug his fingers into the dirt, and launched himself into the torso of this colossal bear. Of bone carapace and thick titanium battleplate, the victor was clear, and his shoulder caved the dense musculature of its chest. Furthermore, the hydraulically enhanced haymaker he catapulted into its chin, flowered its brain matter into the atmosphere of this insane world.

However there was to be no lull in this battle, and the next lupine monster was already crawling over the fading corpse of the great bear, intent on sinking its fangs into his throat. The spartan looked past the creature, to the pair of recently familiar abominations that emerged from the forest, each letting out an ursine-like growl before joining the relentless pack of wolven beasts that had not ceased in their hunt.

B170 sighed.

* * *

All was quiet, as it should be. The blissful blanket of night had finally descended upon his lauded institution. His students were, (hopefully), resting, and certainly not up to no good. Though he could personally think a few that might very well be causing problems for him once more, and at that very moment. But he set his concerns to the side, intent on enjoying this brief and far too rare chance at amity, an unusual ceasefire between himself and his task as headmaster.

Ozpin looked to the porcelain mug at his desk, and to the surprisingly and oh so wonderfully absent stack of papers usually reserved for haunting his peace of mind, and released a pleasant, decidedly relaxed sigh as he reached for his mug of decadent chocolate goodness.

Yes, truly things were turning out to be unusually quiet for a Monday.

The doors to his office blew open in a flurry of irritable blonde, and headmaster Ozpin sighed, returning his hands to a perfectly primed steeple on his desk.

He hated Mondays.

"Good evening, Glynda." He greeted his subordinate in a forcefully pleasant tone as he watched the whirlwind of feminine scholastic calamity disrupt the Zen of his work space. He winced in regret, when her hip slammed into his desk, and a faint dagger of despair plunged into his heart as his cup was knocked over, the delicious coco inside washing over his _very _expensive desk.

"What seems to be the rush?"

The woman glanced down to the headmaster, leveraging a rather serious glare at him past her silver rimmed glasses. "We have a problem."

Ozpin sighed. "I told Miss Rose that afterhours use of the facilities was strictly prohibited." He reached to his desk, past the spilled drink that was actively staining his _very _expensive desk, and readied to call the building maintenance supervisor for a late night call.

He paused when Glynda placed a firm hand on his scroll, and a slight tug of interest flickered inside him as he looked to the woman. "Not a code red then?"

"Worse." Was the reply of his most trusted faculty member, as she flipped her scroll and presented the screen to him, the images passing quickly and with considerable violence.

"Much worse."

* * *

_AN:... Surprise! I went ahead and took a crack at an idea I previously mentioned. I hope it proves as interesting for you all as it is for me. I read a story a ways back, a halo and RWBY fic that was startlingly good, and since then I have had this tenacious desire to try my own hand at it. Needless to say, I'll probably throw a few chapters out for this real quick, before wandering back to some of my other works. And in that regard, there are some VERY big changes coming to my side of fanfiction pertaining to one of my stories in particular. So keep an eye out, I'll probably drop it soon. Until then, later._

_Keep the Faith. _


	2. Darkened Tides

Darkened Tides

B170 was willing to admit, reluctantly, that the situation was perhaps, maybe, looking somewhat dour. This admittance was finally considered and addressed after the ruination of his newly acquired sword, the continuous abuse it underwent finally culminating in its complete loss as he tried to retrieve it from the skull of the eighth bear-like shadow beast to emerge from inside the darkened hollows of this alien forest, instead to watch helplessly as it snapped in half.

And in that moment, his situation devolved from somewhat exasperating, to genuinely perilous. With the weapon visibly destroyed, their wild aggression turned ravenous. Halfway reaching for one of the rifles on his back, B170 was dragged to the ground by three of the wolven bipeds. The first impact caught him under his armpit, pinning his right arm over his shoulder as he fell to the dirt. The following duo of rapid clashes kept him restrained in his prostrated position, and he felt his breathing constrict as a fur laden paw seized his throat, its hairy digits grasping for some way to rip his helmet from his scalp.

The spartan's composure shattered.

B170 slammed his right elbow down with all his strength he could muster, compressing the spine of the monster against his side till he felt the hardness in its body fracture. With his left arm, he sent a fist into the side of the skull of the one atop him, and its head bent at an impossible angle. The last perished swiftly, a double overhand hammer blow imploding its body as he flung himself into a rearwards roll. He came out of the dive on the offensive, with two rifles in either hand, unloading into the horde as he rapidly pumped his steps back in retreat.

Distance was created as the creatures fell over one another in a disorderly mass of flaming flesh, though the separation between him and them was less than he would have liked and soon the ammunition in the magazines was depleted. More bodies rushed in to fill the space provided, and the spartan tossed the spent weapons, grabbing the last insurrectionist rifle to lay down a final, withering assault of gunfire that left a trail of smoking shell casings in his wake.

Yet they were relentless, and not moments after his gun spent its last bullet, they were upon him again.

The spartan ducked low, avoiding the swing of an overly muscled arm as he flipped the stock and grasped the barrel of the rifle in two hands. Forced under such conditions, he sent the backend sailing into the vulnerable throat of his closest adversary. Metal bent under immense stress, and the beast stumbled away, retching though its crushed windpipe.

He was able to drag five more swipes from the battered frame of his makeshift club before it finally gave way over the head of one of the armored bears that charged through the throng. The creature's ivory pate cracked under the blow and it fell to its side, the interiors of its head reduced to sodden mush. Victorious, but in the same moment, defeated, the spartan flung the useless weapon away from him, imbedding the broken rifle into the forehead of the nearest biped, as he drew his combat knife from its sheath and turned once more to attempt escape.

He focused entirely on keeping his legs pumping, pushing himself to limits he had not reached since his days in basic training, giving anything and everything to escape from an ignoble death under the impossible wildlife of this alien world. The environment became a blur of pastel images that whipped past his vision as he sprinted through the forest with the devastating dynamism of a guided missile, more than a thousand pounds of armored spartan accelerating close to 98 kilometers an hour, annihilating anything that might have attempted to slow him down.

B170's teeth barred in discomfort as he strained muscles and tendons that were never supposed to exceed limitation beyond even that of his chemically augmented humanity, and he did his best to ignore the very unpleasant sensation of his bones trying to run out of his own body.

Several 2D monitoring charts popped into stark visibility in his HUD, unwelcomed and annoying in their distraction, and the spartan hissed through clenched canines as he was forced to look past the rapid fluttering of the EKG display and detailed holographic showing him in 25th century clarity, that his heart was pumping itself apart.

The sensation, while uncomfortable, was preferable to having his armor torn open like a tin can, and his insides devoured by shadowy aberrations. He ignored it. Pain was an intimate friend of his, and he had long ago learned how best to disregard bodily distractions. However, it was significantly harder to overlook his heart's best attempts at entering self-imposed cardiac arrest.

Every breath became a battle of attrition as he forced himself to further push past his endurance, soaring to new heights of ability he had never attained before. Desperation was a previously unexperienced sentiment for the spartan of Beta Company. Nevertheless it proved itself, as it had since the earliest days of mankind, to be the key emotion necessary to push someone beyond the possible. His HUD's speedometer, continuously ticking upwards, arrived in the realm of triple digits at the very same moment he felt something tear in his ankle. And in that one instant, everything that could go wrong, did.

B170 stumbled, lost coordination for a fraction of a millisecond, and struck a tree at speeds excess of a hundred kilometers. The tree, forty inches of solid oak, burst like a timber balloon as he exploded through its core, sending darts of wooden shrapnel flying in all directions. Something _shifted_ in his shoulder at the blow, and the spartan growled as a notification window jumped across his vision alerting him to the emergency of having just contracted two moderate-to-severe injuries. Ignoring his cracked collarbone and most certainly torn Achilles tendon, he turned his uncontrolled dive into a semi-coordinated stumble as he came through his partial collapse in a haggard limp.

His chest screaming its fury, the spartan grabbed his MA37 from its home across his back, and looked into the dark underbrush he had sprung out of. His motion tracker was in utter disarray. A horde of angry red dots swarmed across the display, converging in one swollen mass of crimson that zeroed in on him with a vengeance. The meters ticked down rapidly, and he had perhaps a minute before they overran his positon.

The spartan snarled, and bright flashes of light and sound illuminated the night sky as he sent controlled bursts of ammunition downrange, dropping target after target in a futile attempt to reduce their numbers. Number he knew would not relent. 300 meters… 250... 200… 175… the shadows began to coalesce into visible forms as they drew nearer, and B170 slotted in his last magazine with the heavy weight of inevitability draping itself over his shoulders.

To think, after everything he had survived, Arcadia, Banon IV, Reach… this was where he finally clocked out, eaten alive by fantastical shadow creatures on some backasswards colony in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

It was certainly not what he had expected.

And he had hoped for better.

His rifle's receiver snapped shut with a percussive finality, its last bullet scything through the air and into the eye of a charging monster straight out of fairytale. He stowed the weapon and limped a step back into the open field behind him, his knife drawn and ready to shed blood. Although he was to die, he would in no way make it easy.

The first to close with him was one of those wolf-like things, bounding on all fours and jaws dripping with saliva as it pounced, clearing a full twelve feet in the air as it flew right at him. The spartan reversed his grasp on his knife and ducked low, intending to disembowel the monster as it soared overhead.

Instead, and contrary to his morbid fatalism, it was flung away from its aimed flight towards his throat as a high caliber round slammed into its chest. B170 whipped his head towards the source of the shot, and was surprised to see towering stone ramparts reminiscent of a settlement belonging somewhere in the medieval age, sequestered off in the distance. The walled village was a good kilometer and a half from his position, nestled into the recess of a small mountain. He might have wondered at how he could have not seen it earlier, if not for the fact he was far too preoccupied in his current state of consciousness, although now its presence was clear and undeniable.

Several more shots lanced out from the town's parapets, and a voice shouted at him with the aid of a loudspeaker system.

"_What are you waiting for you dumb son of a bitch, RUN!" _

B170, briefly considering his options in respect to the continued permanence of his own existence, decided it prudent to listen to the voice, and began a hurried limp towards the perceived safety of the fortified township. Even in a staggered run and laden with injuries, he was faster than most physically fit people, and crossed the distance in relatively quick time, meanwhile the ceaseless barrage of marksmen rifles thundered over his head and into the mass of creatures that still tried to reach him under the withering fusillade of hot lead.

With prey so close, they had no intent on letting it escape.

Despite their persistence, he would not become their evening meal, and the spartan maneuvered past the line of wooden stakes surrounding the perimeter of the town, hobbled around the pits of pitch and tar, on to the weathered roadway, and into the gatehouse under the veiled compartments hiding boiling oil, reaching the imposing iron portcullis safeguarding the hamlet's gate just as the bulk of the pack thrust themselves upon the pointed tips of the first defensive line. The metal entryway, motorized by electrical power, opened swiftly as he ducked inside and the great gate slammed down shut behind him.

The next barrier, an equally impressive door of unblemished steel, swung open to reveal the stone inlaid courtyard of a city that would have fit well in the boulevards of ancient Rome, if not for the street lights, metal benches, and modern store fronts that projected yellow light onto white cobble from their glass display windows. The imagery was a paradoxical hybrid of cultures that piqued his notice, regardless of his current happenstance.

He had not seen its like on any colony world previous.

Such curiosity however, could wait.

The spartan wasted little time and delved deeper into the township, tracing a discerning eye across the staged weapon emplacements and the assorted group of unusual men and women that had formed at the entrance to meet him. The plaza about him was deathly silent, the stillness broken only by the constant chatter of guns on the bulwarks up above.

B170 was nonplussed.

The people in front of him were of a motley assortment, most dressed in patchwork armor and bearing firearms quite similar to those he once possessed, but had been lost in his withdrawal. B170 resisted the urge to reach for his closest weapon, mostly in the understanding that it lacked ammunition. However, the knife he held had no such qualms, and he readied to bring it into a guarded position, wherein he noticed another strange quirk of this endlessly peculiar world that made him forget any ideas of blood and death.

Of those not dressed like militia regulars disconcertingly evocative of what he would have expected of the insurrection, were perhaps a handful of the most inexplicably outfitted and outrageously ostentatious individuals he had ever seen. Long sleeved dress coats, sheer skirts, capes… cloaks… he had no words. If not for the even stranger weapons they carried he might have thought them Shakespearean era rejects, or the castoff detritus of an unsuccessful dramatized reproduction

Their weaponry… that was what forced him to seriously consider them as a threat, if perhaps the most peculiar danger he would face. Blades, spears, a battle axe… nothing that any unaugmented human with the right mind would ever consider taking onto a modern battlefield.

B170 turned his helmet to the man that moved to approach him, the massive double headed axe rested casually on his shoulder giving the spartan a valid reason to take him seriously. Slowly, and with noteworthy reluctance, he sheathed his combat knife and forced his hands to rest at his sides. Burdened by his injuries and bereft of any considerable arsenal, he decided for the moment to pursue the most judicious course of action.

Retaliation could be planned and effected later

He instead examined the man that stepped close to him, now a handful of feet away. Bright, wildly purple eyes, shockingly blue hair, short but stocky build, and soft features, B170 had seen some unusual gene variation in his life, usually manifesting in slight increases to height or unusual pigmentation, but this one man embodied the all of the strangest possibilities available to the human genome.

"So…" The man, or rather young adult given his posture and voice, trailed on in a bemused tone, glancing up and down the hulking contours of his Mjolnir with a brow that continued to rise the longer he stared. Eyes initially drawn to his considerable height were now more so intrigued by his presumably foreign paraphernalia. "You from Atlas then?"

Atlas, the same group that had produced the MRE's, assumable to be insurrectionist forces, tone and inflection indicate no prior allegiance, curious and… surprised by his armor? Not from Atlas then… perhaps not insurrectionist?

B170 tilted his helmet in a way to deny his affiliation and relaxed his clenched fists, allowing himself the smallest moderation. However he was not at ease. Everything about this world, about these people, was wrong. There was no sign of UNSC architecture or technology, and while spartans rarely interacted with the civilian populous, depictions of Mjolnir was commonplace in mainstream media, and their existence was a revelation made during the decline of the war to boost faltering morale. Everyone knew about the presence of spartans, from the oldest elder to the youngest child.

Their contributions to the war effort were blown out of proportions even past the incredulous nature of reality. That he would not know what a spartan was, nor recognize the emblem of the UNSC on B170's right pectoral, was nigh inconceivable.

"You got a name then big guy?" The young man asked, breaking B170 from his bewildered contemplation. It was clear, if not already, that this was not a situation that could be resolved discreetly, regardless of the fact he had brought these creatures to their door. He was a stranger, and for whatever reason, an unrecognized one. And _that_, made his position considerably more dangerous than it already seemed.

B170 had an unpleasant feeling that the insurrection had just become the least of his increasingly dubious problems.

The spartan shifted his helmet down, appraised the expectant expression of the armed adolescent that looked half his age when standing beside the towering UNSC supersoldier, recognized the preparedness of his cohorts and what seemed to be the local militia, and weighed his options in a long drawn solipsism.

"_Lucan."_ He offered cautiously, dredging the heft of his past through the bitter recollection of his unkind memories. The vocalization of his name came out in a contracted growl indicative of a cough, as he forced long unused and damaged chords into motion.

Spoken word was, to B170, an irritant, a personal sentiment that had grown in candor throughout his career serving his superiors in the office. The more leadership began to wax and prose about the righteousness of their cause, and necessity of their operations and black ops sanctions, from the safety of their hideouts far from the battlefield when better men bled and died, the more he began to despise the capabilities of the human larynx.

And it they would not consider silence, he could at least do himself the favor.

"Well Lucan," the boy sighed heavily, a wry smirk crossing his lips as he glanced up the significant height of the man in front of him. "We have quite a few questions for you, if you'd be so kind as to follow us." He gestured past him, towards the awaiting street, and the small evening crowd that B170 had finally noticed accumulating during their brief discourse.

Resisting the urge to draw his weapon, knowing its rounds were spent, and that he had limited ammo for his shotgun, the spartan instead nodded, and reluctantly complied.

Perhaps he would finally have the answers to the questions he himself possessed.

* * *

"Sir…."

General James Ironwood, knee-deep in the not entirely proverbial mountain of paperwork left in the fallout of this most recent political disaster, lifted his weary eyes from the increasingly blurred pages and set aside his pen, ignoring the deep cramp in his wrist and hand as he addressed the woman who had come to knock on the open door of his office.

"Yes, specialist?" He inquired, a tired brow raised crossly in mild inquiry at the interruption.

It was well known among those serving aboard his personal ship that he was not to be disturbed when handling affairs in his stateroom, not even by the select few he appeared to favor. As it was now, with his time consumed writing never-ending reports regarding the largest governmental turmoil since the faunus rebellion, it was especially dangerous to interrupt him. The command staff far away in their ivory citadel in Atlas was rapacious in their desires to stick substantial, possibly career inhibiting reprimands on his record for his most recent misallocation of altesian resources.

And so, currently, not even the influence of a Schnee would be safe from his displeasure.

Thankfully for Winter, her next words were a saving grace, if bearing ill portent.

"_The Valiant _has returned from its tasking."

The beginnings of his irritation extinguished, the general, calm and poised, offered a single perfunctory nod. "Ah… I see." A moment spent shuffling papers and organizing pens occurred, before he finally rose from his leather seat, a sternness once more overtaking his expression as he directed Winter out of his office.

A nod was returned, this one in understanding, as she retreated into the corridor outside. Once departed from his room, she moved to walk by his side, ever composed and poised, a true exemplar of all that was to be admired in the Atlas military. Ironwood, in that moment as always, found new appreciation for the disparity between Winter Schnee and her father, Jacques. There were not, in all of Remnant, two people more unalike. And James often wondered how a studious, loyal soldier could be conceived from the endless voracity of the Schnee lineage.

"Have you spoken with Captain Bronze?" He looked to his subordinate, awaiting her reply.

"Only once, when he reestablished contact." She answered succinctly.

And he watched, as her eyes flickered for the briefest moment, inhabited by an emotion he had not seen in her since she had first been assigned to his command. Unease was a rare thing to see on a Schnee, and Ironwood could not help but be intrigued at the unusual display.

"The captain appeared… disturbed." She continued after a pause of notable silence. "He insisted most adamantly that you meet him aboard his ship. From what I gathered in the exchange, there was something he wished to show you."

Ironwood catalogued and digested her words, his mind tackling the potential issue with all the alacrity that had seen him rise from the ranks. Bronze was one of his staunchest captains and steadfast supporter. An aging survivor of the Faunus wars. His experience had turned him into a reserved, but dedicated officer, long after he should have retired. James considered him somewhat of a grandfatherly figure, and Bronze had been his mentor for many years before he inherited his position.

Bronze was widely regarded as an eccentric by Atlas leadership and his open stance on Faunus rights had in the past denied him several opportunities for career advancement by those in power who still harbored resentment.

Even with the considerable blacklisting around his name, there was no other captain in his fleet he trusted more. So to hear that upon return he appeared 'disturbed', was enough to give Ironwood considerable pause. For as long as he had known Bronze, nothing had ever been able to shake his will.

Foreseeing a dark future, James decided to take prudence over protocol.

"Then we must leave immediately."

If surprised by his announcement, Winter schooled her thoughts well, and remained a quiet companion along the journey to the ship's hanger. Upon arrival and approach of the nearest pilot, the man was suitably alarmed to see the general appear in person without warning. The crisp salute he had begun to transition into, was largely ignored as Ironwood strode past him and up the bullhead's gangplate

The man, nearly stumbling over himself in surprised confusion, hurried after the general. "W-What do you need, Sir?" He uttered out in a slight stutter, his helmet half jammed back onto his head as he rushed to the cockpit.

"Take me to _The Valiant_, soldier." Ironwood ordered, already buckling himself into a harness as the pilot staggered up the steps to the front of the transport. There was a feeling in his gut, one he had come to recognize as a premonition of dark things to come. And his instincts had never been wrong before.

"Make it quick."

* * *

His office was quiet but for the ubiquitous _click clack_ of gears churning above his desk. Yet he had long grown used to the presence of the machines providing a unique décor for his space, and paid them no heed as he focused instead on the unpleasant work piled high in front of him, an imposing tower of papers ridden with various resource requests from staff, weekly expenditure reports and droll finances. The life of the headmaster of Vale's greatest huntsman institution was not as interesting as the title may have seemed, and he often wondered at his life decisions. Had he known when he had first taken the position, that it would require gratuitous application of prosaic paperwork, he might have thought to reconsider.

Ozpin stared at the first page of the fifteen page and unnecessarily tedious budgetary document that had been forwarded to him by Oobleck. The man, while a godsend for taking over the economic responsibilities usually reserved for the headmaster, somehow, in an admittedly impressive, if horrifying accomplishment, managed to influence an already mind-numbing document with his nearly incomprehensible habit of carrying endlessly upon a topic.

The headmaster of Beacon, a man of considerable renown and respect, sighed heavily as he skimmed the twelfth page of inconsequential data Oobleck had decided to collect and attach to the expense report, for 'comprehensiveness' as he liked to phrase this utterly boring written diatribe of incomplete thoughts and run-on sentences.

In the end, Ozpin signed the bottom of the last page and slid it across his _stained _and _very_ expensive desk, to the tragically small pile of complete forms that had not seen much progress since his work began earlier that morning. It looked positively pitiful sitting next to the monolithic pile still awaiting his approval under the pale moonlight streaming through the windows in his office.

Nursing a throbbing hand, he leaned back into his seat with an uncharacteristically petty grunt. James didn't have to suffer like he did. No sore hands or tired eyes for James Ironwood. No belligerent students always landing in trouble, no dark secrets that might result in the extinction of mankind. Ozpin would not put it past his old friend to have a legion of support staff to tack care of his school's records and maintain order. Certainly the rank of general in the Atlas military was not without its perks.

Looking to the stack of work awaiting him, and noticing that it somehow seemed to have gotten _bigger_, Ozpin sighed once more and, with a quick, furtive glance around his office for the golden haired mistress of his school, shuffled it off the edge and into a bin beside his desk, right where it belonged.

He smirked.

Out of sight, out of mind.

His smirk quickly became a smile as he grabbed his mug of hot coco and sipped, releasing another increasingly prolonged sigh. He savored the taste of sweetened chocolate and the faintest hint of cinnamon, and turned his attention inwards.

However before he could correlate his thoughts, there was a light tap on his balcony door. The shadow of excitement danced inside him as he turned to look towards the terrace just as it opened, admitting the familiarly ragged appearance of a tired old crow.

Ozpin chuckled.

In the moment the descriptor was more euphemism than fact.

He remained silent, watching as the disheveled man entered his office and lethargically made his way towards the closest seat. Qrow Branwen collapsed heavily into the chair and threw his feet up onto the desk.

Ozpin's brows narrowed ever so slightly as he watched a dusting of dirt tumble from the heel of the man's boot and speckle the far side of his workspace.

"So…" He inquired after several moments passed and he discerned that he would not receive his answer unless he pressed the issue. It was a familiar song and dance, one associated with the entire Branwen lineage as far as he was aware. Although the question as to why they collectively seemed to be so antagonistic was one he had yet to answer, even though he had his theories.

Qrow matched Ozpin's curious stare with sunken, bloodshot eyes, and withheld his response until well after he scrounged a battered flask from inside his dirtied coat and took a heavy draft of its alcoholic contents.

Ozpin waited patiently as Qrow drained the entire canteen and roughly shuffled it back into his clothing. His wait continued for a further three minutes as the man opposite him seemed to mull over his thoughts, until finally he spoke.

"Sorry Oz man." He snorted irritably. "Whoever it is you're looking for, they weren't in the neighborhood by the time I showed up, quite a long trip that was you known, far away from the usual routes." He muttered offhandedly, his tone clearly upset and his expression rather suggestive.

Ozpin schooled his irritation underneath a calm demeanor, a trick he was well-practiced in, particularly in regards to the Branwen family, although it had become quite useful when dealing with his latest batch of miscreant students. They could speak of adequate compensation later, the immediate topic was of more importance, and the information he received was less than welcomed. "That is… unfortunate. Did you perhaps see anything that might indicate where they might have gone?"

The dark haired man shrugged brushing a calloused hand across his cheek to scratch at his days old stubble. "Can't say for sure. Whatever happened out there really did a number on the local vegetation, mostly looked like the usual hallmarks of a Grimm attack, textbook destruction, no bodies though. So whoever it was managed to give more than they were getting, and judging from what I saw, they were getting a_ lot_."

Ozpin mulled on Qrow's words, taking another draft from his mug as he contemplated what scant information he had gathered. Whatever, or whomever, tripped the sensors last night was an objective of immense curiosity for the Beacon headmaster. The footage that had been retrieved was corrupted, damaged along with the equipment during the scuffle, but what was legible, was easily sufficient to make this individual's discovery of substantial interest to him.

While blurred, the camera had been able to capture solid figures at least, and the recording was clear to the point where individual movement could be discerned if studied hard enough. And what Ozpin had seen, was a person capable of great strength, considerable speed, and lithe coordination. Such ability was not uncommon, especially for trained huntsman. However, for one person to display such effortless synergy between all three qualities simultaneously as had been displayed, was simply… unprecedented.

It was, essentially, impossible for a huntsman of any caliber to have such a degree of proficiency in multiple forms of combat discipline. It was taught in the academies - including the very one he supervised - that to entertain the notion of excellence in all three categories was imprudent and an unrealistic goal. It simply could not be done. And that included factoring the capabilities of individual students. Much like their semblances, each student and even fully registered huntsman, were limited by their physical ability. It would be impossible for Ruby Rose to physically overpower Cardin Winchester, just as it would be impossible for Winchester to match her speed.

And yet this individual, whoever they were, did not seem to abide by natural law. Who were they? Where did they come from? What gave them this inhuman ability? And perhaps most importantly, where did they stand in this war? Ozpin very much desired the answer to these questions. And yet it seemed to him, that there was only one person on remnant who could provide them.

* * *

This planet was… abnormal.

B170 had thought himself inured to the idiosyncrasies of this world after having spent such a considerable amount of time surviving it. He had tentatively considered, and foolishly believed, that there was nothing left here that could possibly confuse him further than his current, and constant, flux of misapprehension. He had engaged hostile humans that he no longer was content to assume possessed insurrectionist connections; he encountered impossible creatures that denied all aspects of reality.

And now there was… this.

"You must be Lucan, huh?"

The spartan nodded, his intense gaze invisible to the short woman that had greeted him the moment he had been led into the building. His initial scrutiny had noted its primitive ornamentation suited to an age that lacked significant technology, although its comparatively primitive embellishment clashed starkly with the electrical lighting and indoor plumbing. But that, while unusual, was not what bewildered him so.

No, his confounded bemusement, and dogged attention, was ensorcelled by pert, furred ears atop this woman's head, and the long, flashy tail that flicked to and fro above, or rather attached, to her tailbone.

The woman endured his observation in unknowing silence, his helmet obscuring his mystified eyes from her awareness as she drew a slow smirk. "Not much of a talker, are ya?" She ventured, her question alight with amusement as he nodded once more in reply.

"Right then," She continued on without missing a beat, gesturing behind her to a table relatively close to the back of the archaic establishment. "Maybe we can take this one-sided conversation away from the entrance to this fine building. You seem to be quite a better door than the one you came in from,, I'm afraid." She chuckled as B170 cast a glance back to see the young adults that had brought him here were prevented from entering by his sizeable mass. And he gave more attention to the fact that he had been hunching nearly two feet lower to stand in the doorway.

He, after a moment of reflection, moved to comply. B170 was deeply aware of his unusual dimensions, a feat that was even more peculiar given its difference from the already extensive enhancements imparted by his spartan augmentations. It had taken considerable adaptation after the procedure to accustom himself to the radical alteration that not even the scientists had expected. He had been of relatively normal stature as a child and throughout most of his young adulthood. However the amplifications of the exaltation process had activated recessive genes in his DNA, and the hereditary perpetuation of a rare strain of gigantism. Had it not been for the augments, he might have gone his entire life without ever knowing. As events played out, he had instead spent a considerable overture bedridden in the onsite hospital as a result.

He recalled the whole experience to be overwhelmingly… unpleasant.

The best and brightest of the UNSC's medical industry had saved him from horrible disfigurement, and the scars of their efforts still lingered. Nevertheless, he had survived, and developed into a spartan that was the largest of his peers, dwarfing even the few gen II's he had met in his service. Standing roughly nine feet in Mjolnir, eight without, he had been the heavy weapons, and CQC operator in his squad, and had, on one occasion in his official record, successfully defeated a magelekgolo in melee combat, despite severe injuries in the exchange preventing him from active service for three days.

Consequently, his disorder, and time sensitive injuries, had been what saved him from the massacre that was Operation: TORPEDO. Handpicked from his class to take assignments under ONI, he had been half a galaxy away when he heard the news regarding the fallout.

Although in his current frame of mind such thoughts were a fleeting distraction, passing through the spartan's consideration in the time it took for him to clear the doorway and follow the… unusual woman to the table she had elected. She was quick to sit, and he watched perplexedly as the gaggle of youths piled in after her, like a herd of rampaging buffalo.

B170 refrained from joining for several reasons. Knowing no wooden chair could ever endure his weight, and unwilling to put himself in a vulnerable position, he instead opted to take a knee, as unusual as it may have appeared. The action was more to ensure any conversation would be conducted at a more reasonable elevation, as he had no particular desire to rest. B170 masked the jab of pain in his foot as he shifted into place, hoping that somehow he might find the freedom to tend to his injuries depending how this all played out. The woman, a wolf-like ear flicking in some incomprehensible emotion, seemed to understand the basis of his decision as she calculated the largeness of his physique.

He in turn, inspected her animal features and tried to discern some form of scientific reasoning behind their existence, anything that might fit in his largely incomprehensive understanding of biology. _A mutation perhaps? _He mused inwardly. B170 did not possess much in the terms of personal knowledge in the sciences, at least no more than how to proficiently eliminate all forms of organic threat or what was most advantageous in regards to tactical and strategic operations.

"Now then…" The strange woman began, casting a brief look towards himself and the adolescents that had delivered him here, who now sat in respectful, if rambunctious silence. It was clear to them that the adults were talking, even if he might not have been much their elder

"My name is Viridia Volkova, and I will be handling this little impromptu investigation. So, if I might be so bold as to ask, Mister Lucan, where exactly do you come from?" She reached into her shirt as she talked, a shortly cropped top that revealed an unusual amount of bosom, and retrieved a medallion of some sort that she preceded to show to him. The motion, although uncouth, seemed to imitate some form of familiarity, and the symbol etched into the pendant provoked images of authority, leading the spartan to carefully assume its, and therefor her significance. That the children led him to her, and that they seemed to uphold some as of yet quantified role as protectors of this town, gave the spartan cause to think her a leading figure of some renown. But the reason was unclear. Did individuals bearing her unique… genetics, have some role as arbitrators in their society? Was she the town mayor, or leading military figurehead?

Too many unknowns, and not enough information.

B170 felt it sensible in this scenario to be careful with his words, unawares as to the true extent of his displacement. Further ignorance to his existence and inability to recognize UNSC iconography fostered deeper feelings of reservation in his mind and he no longer was confident in his ability to survive uncontested. Even the animals of this world were dangerous to a spartan, and there were possibly even more dangers he had yet to discover. The human supersoldier was even less sure of his standing then he had been the first day he stumbled out of the forerunner archeology.

This world was definitely not Nochtis Prime, and he had the sinking suspicion that it was even further away from the UNSC than the Arcana System. But that was simply the root of an increasingly expansive problem. He knew nothing about this world or its inhabitants, and did not trust any story he might try to concoct. He could think of no subtle means of diverting the issue, and instead decided to attempt a more familiar direction.

"_Classified." _He grunted his reply, a rejoinder that had suited him well when other military personnel had attempted to communicate with him. Unfortunately, the attempt to hopefully soften his response to alleviate any animosity that might arise due to the brevity of his answer, was ultimately wasted, as verse once again failed him. His reluctance to speak over the years had made speech an infrequent, and brazenly coarse affair for the spartan III. His answering word erupted from his throat in a granular snarl, his larynx far more used to producing wordless growls and low pitched roars.

The woman gave no real surprised reaction, at least none that a normal human might. Her ears however, gave her away.

B170 watched them fold flat against her hair, and recognized the primal fear response. And while her reaction was subtle, the youths were not. They had recoiled, as if lashed by the sheer curtness of his vocalization. The spartan exhaled heavily, the sound unheard by his audio receptors as he realized just how out of place he was with all this. He could count on one hand the number of times he had interacted with civilians or non UNSC aligned entities, and more than half of that had been the Covenant.

"_Apologies." _He rumbled softly, this time somewhat more successful at controlling the volume and pitch of his voice. While far away from welcoming, it was a marked improvement.

"_I… do not speak often." _There was a mild irritation he felt as he spoke, like an irksome itch at the back of his throat, one that grew in discomfort the more protracted his speech became, just another ever-present reminder that he had not escaped entirely from the results of his procedure.

The spartan did not know what to expect, from this meeting or from this world in general. And he most certainly did not anticipate her response.

"Does it hurt?" She inquired softly, her eyes, dark viridian in color, seemed to take in the featureless display of titanium carbide, tungsten alloy, and layered graphene composing his faceplate, before lowering towards the metallic fibers of his suit, visible between his head and breastplate.

Unawares as to how to react, he settled for the truth.

"_Sometimes." _

Then, she smiled at him, her expression warm and kind as she appeared to shift her interrogative. "Well, then perhaps I will keep this brief." She returned her necklace to its place and clasped her hands together on the tabletop. "While I do not possess the authority to inquire about governmental operations, I will at least require an explanation for why you arrived at our gates with a legion of Grimm hot on your heels."

The spartan was quick to jump on what little information he had been given, anything that might help him familiarize himself with this world. Those creatures had a name. They were the Grimm, and he would not forget that. As to how he might explain himself… well the truth seemed most appropriate.

"_I was… lost." _

"Lost…" She repeated skeptically, a brow raised and a singular ear perked.

"_Correct." _

He could see the disbelief etched onto her pale visage, and even the teenagers that had joined her at the table did not quite believe that. This did not surprise him, he had not expected belief. What was important was that she had no evidence to dismiss his claim. His was not a lie, but rather an omission of certain verities.

"In that case, Lucan." She exhaled delicately, clearly unhappy with his answer but deciding not to press forward with her disgruntlement. "If you were lost, perhaps I can tell you where you were found." Volkova looked up from the table, gesturing widely about the humble dimensions of the tavern. "This building, and the town around it, belongs to the rather large and industrious complex known as Brittle Peak, perhaps you may have heard of it?"

Although he was in danger of appearing even more suspect, he did admit his absence of knowledge with a slight shake of his head. The information he possessed about this world could be displayed on a single kilobyte of storage, and so at the risk of suspicion he could afford to press for additional data.

The woman's lips twitched, the trace of a frown starting to manifest, before it was quickly subsumed by a curtain of calm congeniality. "Brittle Peak is the largest industrial settlement in Vale outside of the capital city, and one of two colonial outposts in all of the four kingdoms. It's… kind of a big deal." She finished hesitantly, her eyes searching and probing for something he could not possibly provide.

The spartan did not pay her reaction much mind, instead focused on assimilating this new information as it was given to him. Vale, not just a country, but a _kingdom_ and there were three others. This alone was enough for him to consider for some time to come. No one used kingdoms for governance anymore, not even the oddest outlier colonies at the fringe of human space. And of considerably more concern, she did not speak in a way that assumed familiarity with the galaxy at large. Yet once more he had not heard mention of the UNSC, or the Covenant, or anything pertaining to his own knowledge.

He remained silent, and as he hoped, she began to fill the void with words.

"Brittle Peak is the leading supplier of dust in the kingdom, and one of the few places not adherent to SDC regulations. Its size and significance allows it to maintain several full time huntsman and Beacon Academy routinely sends third year students on rotational assignment. This," she gestured to the motley range of young adults, "is Team DARK."

B170 turned to acknowledge those prompted, though his attention was cursory at best, and their varied greetings washed over him as he integrated her words into his increasing store of information. While the terms were utterly foreign to him, and only cemented the idea that he was far away from the UNSC, from this he could begin to build understanding. He identified and highlighted key facts in his mind, SDC, Dust, Beacon, Teams, these definitions were nonsensical to him, but he knew the value of their importance.

"_I… believe I am beginning to remember." _He interjected, gauging the woman's reaction as he continued to formulate his thoughts.

He searched her eyes for any trace of doubt or misgiving, and though he could detect some uncertainty, she did appear to be mostly relieved. It would seem that knowledge of this town was fairly widespread, and B170 avowed to do his best to never again have to expose himself to learn more. Whatever it might take, he would find alternative means of learning about this unusual world, starting with the information he had just been handed.

It was a start, not the best, and not even a good one, but it was at least something.

"Good." Viridia continued, oblivious to his musing. "That should make things easier. And perhaps with that we could drop this whole interrogation thing and just get talking." She gestured dismissively with her hand, and looked over her shoulder to call for who he could only assume was the owner of this establishment.

B170 watched the man exit from a door by the bar across the room, and hastily make his way towards their table. In that moment the spartan began to connect details. The man that approached seemed hesitant, and as he noted before, the building was empty of patrons, leaving them to speak in peace. From what little understanding he had of the civilian sector, this place should have seen business, even so late at night.

The spartan looked back to the woman, and glanced at her chest as she spoke with the barman, as if somehow able to see through her shirt to the pendant she bore. Whatever the symbol was, clearly it offered her some kind of executive power over this place, and perhaps the city at large. While he had yet to uncover what her true role was here, he could at least assume it to be of some sort of leadership.

The conversation between the woman and the man was brief, and he was quick to bow and hurry out the room, B170 followed his departure, and did not lift his guard until minutes after he left. Now somewhat confident that she had not signaled for an ambush, and that he had passed investigation with marginal success, he returned his attention to the table, noticing that the kids were now talking amongst themselves at the dispersal of the serious aura surrounding their conversation, and as his head turned back, Volkova took that as her que to open her mouth once more.

"I took the liberty of ordering a meal for all of us, although I hope I am not too presuming to do so. But I thought the chance to fill your belly might be a nice step in the right direction after your brush with death." She smiled as he nodded, the spartan unwilling to do or say anything else that might further weigh suspicion upon him.

He would admit, to some degree, that he might have liked the idea of a meal. It had been days since he last had something to eat. Stretching his supplies had been prudent for the situation, though he was intrinsically aware that starvation could kill a spartan just as easy as any other man. They were still flesh and blood, as hard as that seemed to be understood by the unaugmented.

B170, his thoughts drifting back to the information he had just obtained, was drawn from his pondering as her tongue began to ramble once more. "The damned Grimm are relentless bastards, I'll give them that much. Every day they seem to take more and more from us, and I am just not sure how much left there is to take. Where were you when they attacked? If you don't mind me asking?" She looked to him inquisitively, and the spartan reflected on how to approach this.

"_I was… at camp, in the wilderness. Inventorying my supplies, I was approached… by a wolf on two legs."_

"Whoa… you camped out there?" A voice interrupted their conversation, and the spartan glanced to the side to see one of the two females in… Team… DARK was it? She was unusually young to wield a weapon, at least for normal humans, perhaps no older than fifteen or sixteen. She seemed… physically disinclined for combat, lanky with the hallmarks of unfinished puberty. Platinum blonde tresses and bright, too soft, pink eyes, made him question the logic of her role. Unmindful of his concerns, her expression was one of awe, and from the mirroring looks of her friends, he realized that what he had done might be considered unusual here.

Given the monsters that had almost eaten him alive, he could believe why.

Viridia shook her head in bemusement, eyeing him with what was either respect, or pity. "There are few people alive that would risk camping outside the cities, Lucan. Though I am surprised a beowulf was the first to find you. Boarbatusk are the predominate species in the area." She hummed thoughtfully to herself, and retrieved an unusual device at her side, some form of unfamiliar technology with a translucent screen, that she slowly began to type on with an idle thumb. "That might mean a shift in Grimm movement. I'll have to contact the mayor later to let him know. Thanks for the Intel, Lucan." She smiled happily up at him.

Bewildered, he simply nodded, before he the children began to probe. Now with something interesting to speak of, and suspicion shrugged off him for the moment, they descended upon the spartan like a pack of wolves with an insatiable appetite for answers.

He was unprepared.

"How many were there?" A boy with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes shouted at him, his frame absolutely shuddering with excitement. His physique more closely fit what B170 expected, broad shoulders, thick muscles, opposite of the girl, he was in a prime that some marines had not attained.

"_Many."_

"How many did you kill?" The other boy interjected, B170 identifying him as the one that had conversed with him at the gate.

"_Not enough."_

"Were you scared?" The last girl in the group of four asked timidly, an overall timorous looking adolescent with slack pink hair and demur red eyes.

"_No." _He almost snapped, insulted at the very accusation. B170 did not feel fear. Nothing scared him, not the Covenant, not humans, not even those monsters that had tried so desperately to eat him alive. His lack of fear was logical in his eyes. One could hardly be afraid if they were undaunted by death.

But in this moment he was willing to admit his trepidation.

The spartan could see a thousand-and-one questions burning at their lips, their eyes alight with childlike curiosity as they prepared to give him the dressing down of his career, thankfully he was gifted reprieve as the adult in the party intervened, preventing, much to his relief, the impending calamity.

"Children, _please_ do not accost our guest." She admonished with a tittering chuckle that showed more amusement then anger. "I am sure that after such a harrowing experience, that Mister Lucan here desires some peace and quiet."

"_Yes Miss Volkova." _They all droned together in a reply that implied mentored familiarity with the woman, perhaps as students? Was she tied to this Beacon Academy he had heard of?

As his situation had concluded thus far, he remained in the dark, his questions unanswered. However the gracious nod he slipped her way was genuine regardless.

There was reason in his lack of, and aversion towards, civilian contact. Distance was conducive to maintaining a positive image of the UNSC, and offered him peace of mind. The less they knew about spartans the benefited all parties involved.

It was better this way.

The strange locals continued to chatter, their topics varied and predisposed by the nature of their youth. The woman however, remained quiet, watching the children as they talked excitedly in their instinctive huddle, a smile hugging the corner of her lips by the faintest of margins.

B170 observed, his eyes, while aware of his environment, habitually returning to the animalian appendages of the eldest in this peculiar party, pondering tediously as to where it is he had found himself.

* * *

_AN: I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to review the last chapter, as well as those who simply gave it a read. I am glad some of you are so excited for this to be continued, and in thanks I worked a little harder to get this chapter out as soon as I did. And as for those who left constructive reviews, I am particularity grateful, and hopefully you will see your concerns addressed in this chapter. _

_Now on to sleep, I have a very long day tomorrow. _


	3. Break of Dawn

Break of Dawn

Huntress Viridia Volkova had seen many unusual things in her life as a protector against the vile scourge that plagued faunas and mankind. The Grimm, and usually anything pertaining to the dark creatures, was not without peculiarity. They came in many familiar shapes and abnormal sizes. She had saved towns out in the deepest depths of the wildlands and lost quite a few good friends along the way.

Yet, even her vast experience in the last four years had not wholly equipped her to deal with the man currently kneeling aside her table.

In a world full to bursting with unusual phenomena and inexplicable ambiguities, this… Lucan, mystified her. He was certainly not what she had expected when young Raldo came bursting into her room in the middle of the night. Thankfully she had been able to learn of the situation despite the bumbled words of Team Dark's youngest member, and had hurried to the walls fully expecting yet another attack.

Brittle Peak was no stranger to Grimm assaults. Despite its above average security and heavy huntsman presence, the town was routinely besieged by the local populations. However what Raldo had failed to clarify in his panicked haste, was the inciting factor behind the Grimm's uproar. And so when she had learned the town had a new visitor, and an… irregular one at that, she had readied to greet them. Her role as supervisory huntsman did not necessarily entail such perfunctory duties, but she preferred to be involved in some token aspect in regards to the town's day-to-day.

However the sight of the armored colossus standing in the tavern's doorway was something she had been entirely unprepared for.

Lucan was a giant by every definition of the word and then some, by far the largest and most instinctively threatening figure she had met in person. Every minute detail lit up her inherent faunus danger sense across the board. His shoulders were as broad and squared as industrial sheet metal, his legs and arms thick with concealed muscle underneath solid sections of heavy armor.

The man was also - more than her first inspection already detailed - an anomaly. His suit did not match altesian designs, or anything that might exist on the open market. She had doubts that Atlas even had black projects as unusual as what currently encased her outlandish visitor.

It was, for a lack of a better term, monstrous. His size, what was in no way shape or form inconsiderable, heightened the intimidation of his foreign panoply. Overlapping plates, thick black metal, and whole body coverage, made his armor more reminiscent of Atlas' paladins rather than anything that could or should be strapped onto a man. She did not understand how a man, of any strength or size, could move with such complexity and ease underneath what had to be hundreds of pounds of steel.

The physical endurance required to operate it would be immense… beyond human limitations, perhaps made possible by his semblance.

Viridia, drawing her gaze away from her gossiping subordinates, sent a polite eye across the table to subtly examine the form of her guest in greater detail, searching for anything that she might have missed in her disbelief. Focused on his chest, she could see no ostensible movement that would specify breathing, though the inherent bulkiness of his suit might be reason enough for any lack of indication.

His arms, from what she could see and had noticed, were protected by a metallic weave of some form, underneath the more prominent coverings below his shoulder and around his forearm. And she did admit, that he moved with a natural elegance that any modern machine could never hope to emulate. The fact he could speak so concisely and with such awareness did much to dismiss her theory of his machine-like origin.

His helmet, secured as tightly as the rest of his body by a seal around his neck, was large in an established thematic appearance that followed the powerfulness of his physique, and any discerning features were concealed underneath an impervious, narrowed faceplate of deep crimson. From her observation she could only decide that there was indeed a man underneath all that metal, though his origin remained a mystery.

In summary, she had no idea what, or who, it was she found herself dealing with.

Before she could devote more time to speculation, she heard the incessant clamor of her rambunctious charges come to a standstill. Looking to them, she followed their hungry eyes to the backroom of the tavern to see that the owner and a few of his hired help had returned, bearing several large trays piled with fried potatoes, fatty steaks, and various other items that would no doubt be unadvisable to those who did not need the high caloric intake of the average huntsmen.

A silence descended upon the table, though the impatient trembling was indication enough that the brief moment of welcomed peace would be fleeting.

Viridia smiled and shook her head, reminiscing her own halcyon days as a student at Beacon. Things had been so much simpler back then, no higher stakes then classes and training. And she would not deny that she did feel slightly envious of the young team.

She also hoped that it would be a little longer before they came face to face with the blunt reality of the life they had eagerly signed up for.

"Ah heck yeah!" Reg exclaimed excitedly, the boy being first to break the silence as a plate of steak and fries was placed in front of him, his bright blue eyes glued to the aromatic steam wafting up from his meal.

His team followed in the footsteps of the red haired powerhouse, each reacting in a way that was to be expected from growing huntsmen and huntresses, though it would be not unalike to a starving man placed before a feast.

Viridia, well accustomed to her provisionary students, did not pay them much attention as they fell upon their food with reckless abandon, all sense of table manners or outside awareness forgone. Instead she looked to the giant armored warrior across the table, watching silently and with bated breath as a similar plate was laid hesitantly before him by the noticeably nervous tavern keep. The man seemed overtly apprehensive as he catered to the silent soldier, who as she had noted, remained largely unspoken throughout the duration.

Her vigil continued as the owner of the building bid a hasty retreat to the safety of the kitchen, leaving the faunus woman, and now her students who had by then noticed the peculiar image, to watch interestedly as the man's helmet inclined ever so slowly towards the meal. The sight was strange, like observing a machine attempt to calculate an impossible equation, and she swore she could almost see the gears churning in his head.

And then, with little pomp or ceremony, he pulled his helm from his head with a sharp twist at the chin. Her second set of ears flicked at the subtle sound of released air, and her keen eyes were locked upon the focal point of his mirrored visor as he lifted the great hunk of wrought metal from his shoulders.

She watched, wordlessly and in silent shock, as he set the cumbersome piece of armor upon the table slowly and with significant care. Her blatant stare was then ignored, as he, with the etiquette and precision of a mistralian noble, tended to his meal.

And despite all truth that dictated her prolonged examination was in ill behavior, Viridia found she could not tear her gaze away from the face of the man underneath that armor. The faunus huntress had expected many things from what she had seen and heard, a grizzled veteran, a roughish noble, even, despite all possibility, a featureless machine.

What she had not expected, was to be greeted with the face of a teenager.

Pale skin as bleached as a shard of the broken moon, shortened hair cut to military regulation, and a pair of distant, grey eyes. His cheeks and chin, hard edged and defined, were dusted with a moderate stubble that spoke of days of hard living out in the field, and he was in all appearance a man only by a few years, if not months. Yet his gaze, the vacant expression his smoky stare assumed as he focused on his food like the mindless automaton she had once thought him to be, had her heart clench tight. She had seen such looks before in many huntsman that had lost everything in their service to civilized society.

He was far too young to bear that burden.

Yet as she dwelled in such thoughts, the young man seemed to finally notice the intense scrutiny he had been subjected to, and his attention dragged up from his meal, the inert animation behind his eyes cold and silent as he regarded the woman and children that sought to distract.

"_Is there… issue here?" _He inquired hesitantly, his words spoken in that same tired baritone, and she could see his throat flex and strain to produce comprehensible vocabulary. Her eyes caught on the thin white scars straining against his throat, the marks thin, abundant, and bearing a… surgical precision.

"No… no forgive my stare." She assured him with a tone as guilt ridden as her conscience. "I have just not seen someone with grey eyes." She fabricated her excuse on the spot, though that must have been blatantly apparent to everyone involved.

However the man offered a simple nod, innocent and unassuming. _"They had been blue… once."_ Though his reply was stilted and rough, there was a certain distance that spoke of memories painfully readdressed, and her focus was temporarily attracted to the silverware that looked to belong with a little girl's tea set when held in such gargantuan hands.

She watched as, after a moment, he set it down, the groove of his gauntlet etched into the thick metal meant to endure rigorous usage by brittle peak's less esteemed and roughened populace.

Viridia, nor her young protégés, could find the ability to reply. The female faunus had thought Lucan to be a powerful presence, with his full plate and soaring height. But the composed severity of his tone, and the stark uniqueness of his features, did more to affix her than his hulking raiment. There was a peculiarity in his paradoxism, visually a child, but in all aspects a man who had shouldered many hardships, she had never before encountered his like before.

And so she realized, as the meal resumed in reflective silence, that she had been unable to draw any meaningful answers, and instead, was only wracked with more questions. Viridia knew that she would not find easy sleep that night.

* * *

B170 stood silent in the pitch darkness of the small tavern accommodation; his shoulders hunched low to avoid brushing his head against the truncated ceiling. He stared blankly at the bed aligned alongside the square windowsill protruding from the east wall, and studied with grim intent, the wood frame no longer than his accumulative arm length, and the thin, down feather stuffed mattress atop it.

And somewhere, in the lingering silence and unassuming darkness, there was a muted sigh.

The spartan drew aside the wall by the bedstead, using the sturdy wood to rest the weight of his arms and armor. The oak partition creaked precariously, but held.

Another terse exhalation occupied the muted chambers.

This world continued relentlessly to defy all logic, reason, or simple common sense, and B170 felt so very, very lost. Remnant, as these strange locals called this planet, was a world beset by fantasy and scientific impossibility. Terms such as the UNSC or the Covenant were unrecognized nomenclature. Grimm, Dust, SDC… Faunus… these were the household terminologies that he was not privy towards.

That was not even to speak of his experience with one of the features of this world's alien lexicon. The Grimm were creatures that disregarded all rationality in favor of absurd, abstract concepts. How could an animal of animate shadow even exist? Where was the science? Where was the rationality?

Yet regardless of the ludicrousness of these creatures, he knew them to be very real and of a credible threat, even to a spartan. All he need do was brush a hand across the deep surface scaring on his pectoral plate.

B170 was, as he had been since his arrival, baffled by the endless tirade of inconsistencies. He knew not where or when, or even the how that had sent him to this place. He had been questioning everything since he departed the forerunner ruins, and he wondered if it had really been the best decision to leave. His memoirs had been bent and twisted like frayed twine by the otherworldly machinations of the forerunner archelogy and its strange machines. And there were stark gaps in his remembrance, from the first day he had arrived on site to protect the research staff, to the moment the small Covenant fleet jumped in system.

For a man with vastly superior retention capabilities compared to the average human, he found the scattered and blurred recollections to be of significant concern. He could recall entering the ruins with the remaining scientists and guard detail, but everything after that was… distorted, a slipshod slideshow of incoherent images and sporadic flashes of light and sound. Clarity only returned to his memories after he had stumbled out of the forerunner complex, alone and disorientated.

He, quite briefly, considered the possibility of returning to find answers, but after his experience with the highly aggressive native species, he did not think much of his chances on a month long journey across _Grimm_ infested wildlands.

He also reflected, for a much longer length of introspection in the darkened, silent bedchamber offered to him by the… wolf eared woman, if he had been followed.

With that notion, the spartan knew he would not be finding easy rest that night, or any night in the conceivable future.

* * *

"And is that… everything you have to report?" The question, phrased so innocuously, was undercut by the mild tone of disappointment in the speaker's voice. And with consideration to who they were, even that was enough.

"I am afraid so, my Queen." The man known as Arthur Watts, bowed low to the woman upon the throne, his tone courteous, respectful, and above all, repentant. One did not show anything less when addressing the Empress of the Grimm. "I was unable to glean any information about this… armored huntsman, from any of my sources."

In the lingering silence of his undesirable declaration, Arthur risked a slow look up towards the set of eyes arrayed against him, as bright red as freshly spilled blood. They were cold, calculative, and gave no notion of her opinion on his lack of information. Under that gaze, he could feel his continued existence upon Remnant balance on a knife's edge.

Yet it seemed luck favored Arthur Watts.

"This is an… unfortunate setback." She mused leisurely, seeming neither angered nor bothered by his lack of results. "Very well, you will continue to search for information in regards to this new huntsman and I do so hope that this time your work will be more… fruitful."

"Of course, my Queen." His bow deepened, and he felt the barest trace of sweat bead on his forehead. "I shall not disappoint."

"Oh I know you will not, Watts." She assured him kindly, though the saccharine pleasantness of her words seemed more poisoned than sweet.

With another sweeping bow that nearly threw out his back, Watts was quick to excuse himself with polite expedience, aware as to how close it was he courted with a scenario that was quite unpleasant, and that she might forego her leniency if he lingered.

Outside the throne room, he allowed himself to finally relax, as much as one could inside the heart of Salem's fortress, dusting off the lapels of his suit as he glanced around the antechamber. Quiet and dark, much like the many rooms scattered about the sprawling citadel, he briefly wondered, as he always did whenever he visited her territories, who it was that had built this place. Whoever they might have been, he was certain they had not enjoyed the fruit of their labor overlong.

With that dour thought reminding him once more of the make and measure of the woman that held his allegiance, he made to depart, intent on gathering the information he lacked as soon as possible. One did not disappoint the Grimm Queen more than once, and he was not so over-fond of failure.

"Hmm… did things not go as expected?" The voice of a young woman, smug and vindictive, broke him from his planning. Leaning against the wall beside the door, it seemed as though she had been waiting for him, or perhaps… eavesdropping.

"Not at all my dear." He replied, turning to address her with a twisted smile that was far from friendly. "In fact, our meeting was quite productive." In a sense, this was true. He had learned a great deal from their conversation. For whatever reason, Salem was quite vested in this new huntsman. And he knew from experience, that her interests were never to be taken lightly.

If she desired to know more about this individual, he would give her all she desired and more.

"That is good to hear." The young woman continued, not privy to the thoughts drifting through his head. "We both know that the Queen does to those who disappoint. And I'd hate to see you share a fate with the other failures."

Watts stooped theatrically in his best mockery of a bow, his unpleasant smile shifting into an unkind grin at the girl in the red dress. "I appreciate your concern, Cinder. But I assure you, Salem will be most pleased upon my return. If I have your leave…" Giving her little time to speak, he turned and departed with a stiffened back and a proud gait.

There was much work to be done, and little time in which to do it.

After all, Arthur Watts was no failure.

* * *

The first thing to shake him from his deep contemplation, was the rather irritating glint of the early morning sun peeking through the blinds of his room, the second, and far more bothersome, came not minutes after as a soft knock on his door.

B170, issuing a heavy, protracted sigh, reaffixed his helmet, locked the environmental seals, and rose from his seated posture, ignoring the protest of his stiffened muscles that had only just begun to relax after his harrowing flight from the mad creatures of this world. The ceiling came towards him too fast, and the spartan felt the onset of another sigh approach as he leaned forward to prevent the crest of his helmet from bumping the rafters.

Of all the things he missed about being in a rational world, the universally high ceilings were perhaps the top of that ever increasing list. Taking a moment to run a quick examination of his equipment, the spartan was grimly reminded of the rather sorry state of his supplies. Something told him that he would not be finding UNSC ammunition in the near future.

Finished, but wholly unsatisfied, he crossed the distance of the room in three steps and opened the door. His vigilant side advocated the wisdom and prudence of hesitation, warning that there might be a potential ambush on the other side of the door, however common sense dictated that the chance of the local population desirous of his death to be in the lower margin of the tenth percentile.

Unsurprisingly, there was no improvised or otherwise professionally made explosive, nor raving mob of unruly townsfolk. Conversely, there was an increasingly familiar woman waiting in their stead. As always, the first thing his eyes were drawn to was the pointed animal ears atop her head, poking out from her long red hair, in deliberate defiance of plausible biology. Her blank expression transformed into a pleased smile as she looked to him, though he did note that her happy demeanor seemed to flicker briefly as she stared into the reflective surface of his visor.

"_Miss Volkova…" _He greeted her as pleasantly as he was able, inclining his head even further as a gesture of common courtesy. After all, she was in some as of yet understood capacity, a local official. And since he was uncertain of the extent of this world's governance, he saw no reason to treat them as he would the insurrection. Indeed things would have gone much differently much quicker if that had been the case. As it was now, he was confident in his assumption that she was here to keep an eye on him.

Judicious, sensible, and oh so very unwanted.

"Good morning, Lucan."

"_Morning."_ He as of yet had no reason to think of it as a good one.

There was a notable lapse between them, before she cleared her throat and reaffirmed her pleasant demeanor. "Would you care to walk with me?" She prompted suddenly, her request coming off at first as unexpected by the spartan who nodded slowly. That was at least, until realization dawned upon him.

Their talk last night had been rather informal, and he could only assume that her purpose here today was to simply conclude her investigation, under a more pleasant methodology.

Perhaps sensing his initial confusion she was quick to blurt out an explanation, he did not focus on the whole of it, and through selective focus, he learned she wished to show him the town, seeing as he did not seem to remember it in their conversation the night prior.

He was uncertain as to how to take her request, but considering his very real lack of information, he did ultimately accept. It would be unwise to ignore this opportunity, however unusual it seemed. There was much he would need to learn about this world if he was to survive long enough to figure where exactly he had been placed, and how he might be able to return to the familiarity he desired.

Or so he told himself as he was suddenly whisked away by the whirlwind of activity that was this strange woman and her entourage of loyal children, where he soon discovered he would be in for an interesting day.

* * *

The mood aboard _The Valiant _was… tense. Ironwood was able to sense the unease the moment he stepped off the bullhead ramp and was met by the dour visage of Captain Bronze. The hoary crags in the man's face had deepened considerably since they last met in person during preparations for the 40th Vytal Festival, and he looked as if he had aged ten years.

"General…" Bronze offered a stiff salute to his superior, and he was quick to reciprocate the accustomed niceties of command, although in moments like this he found their necessity to be somewhat worn-out. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice."

"Of course, Captain. I can always make time for my people, especially old friends." James allowed the smallest trace of a smile to break past his guard before returning to the business at hand. "Specialist Schnee informed me of your request."

"Yes…." The older man nodded slowly, running a hand through his thinning hair. "I thought it prudent that you might see for yourself what has happened to our people."

"Your intuition was well placed." Ironwood was in agreement with Bronze's forethought, and gestured for the old captain to show him the way, more as a courtesy than of any actual need. A man of his experience and position knew well the ins and outs of every altesian vessel, from the smallest bullhead to the mightiest battleship.

Bronze was quiet as he led them deep into the bowels of the airship, and the general made note that his crew was similarly withdrawn. He of course would have expected a tighter ship upon his arrival, back in his own days as an ensign there was always a certain… indolence that arose from endless days aboard what often felt like a flying prison barge. After all there was only so much entertainment to be sought when on tasking. But the manner in which the men and women aboard this ship held themselves was solemn, and he was under the impression that this was more a hearse than a warship.

Of course there was reason to be grave, they were after all transporting the bodies of their fellow soldiers, but war was a bad business, and death was an expected reality for soldiers. The Grimm and more recently, the White Fang, had taken their fair share of good altesian lives. But life for the average soldier went on regardless. The somberness shown by the crew of the entire ship was… unexpected.

Ironwood gave a side glance to Specialist Schnee, to see if she had noted the peculiarity as well, and was relieved that she appeared just as concerned as he felt on the inside.

Eventually, they arrived in the bowels of Bronze's ship, down below were the less visually appealing necessities of an altesian warship, the engine core, the waste disposal facilities, and more importantly in this case, the morgue.

The general, upon turning the corner, was surprised to see the pair of guards stationed by the door, grim faced and armed with rifles. He looked to the captain for explanation.

"The crew was getting curious, so I had some men take shifts to keep the riffraff out." Bronze explained as he motioned for the guards to step aside, to which they complied with suitable alacrity.

A sigh passed through the old man as he opened the door and turned back to Ironwood and Winter.

"Ain't no need for them to see this."

* * *

The town of Brittle Peak was an impressive fortress. Though primitive in form, it was not so in function. The walls were solid stone, three meters deep, and nine tall, interspersed with fixed weapon emplacements and bristling with spiked parapets. It was certainly no UNSC firebase, lacking the significantly more advanced metallurgy and automated weapon systems, but considering the enemy it had been designed to repel, it was functional enough to suit its purpose.

Behind the wall was a city larger than he had at first estimated, with well over three thousand inhabitants, mostly miners he reckoned, both from the information Miss Volkova had given and from what he could see by the simple grace of his keen vision. As she had said, this was an important industrial territory for the… kingdom.

B170 hesitated to use the term. It still did not sit right with him, nothing about this place did. He did not understand how this entire world was possible. How could something this preposterous exist underneath the UNSC's radar? How did a planet of kingdoms, fantastical monsters and anomalous humans, manage to go unnoticed for so long?

Everything he had seen felt more at home in the storybook his mother used to read to him as a child. Even the sky was different here, bluer than any world he had visited, and the air was… pure, cleaner than a summer breeze on the beaches of Arcadia.

For the first time in his life, he had removed his helmet voluntarily, letting it hang from his waist as he took a deep draft of the cool morning wind atop the town's battlements. Below he could hear the rattle and chatter of the settlement's occupants going about their daily lives, peddlers hawking wares, workers coming to and from the mines, children out at play, and guards chatting lazily as they walked the streets, all blissfully unaware of the war, or even the fact that one existed.

The spartan sighed heavily, brushing a gauntlet across his scalp and through his tousled hair as he stared out into the sprawling forest outside the city gates, to a whole world that had no idea who or what he was.

And he waited, for what was soon to come.

They called this world Remnant, and he had to wonder, as he looked upon this strange place… just what exactly was it a remnant of.

"So… how'd you like your tour of the town?"

B170 withdrew from his musing, brought back to the reality of the present by the more and more familiar tone and voice of the Volkova woman. He turned from his contemplative introspection, eyes lingering for the barest trace of a moment upon her extra appendages before centering on her face. Her features were soft, and well rounded, fitting more in line with an upper-class noblewoman or a politician of weighted pedigree, than what he had learned her job to be.

In point of fact, he had made note, that all the women, and even the men of this world were of fairer face and build than those of the usual human physiology he was accustomed to. They were almost all universally taller, and more physically fit as well. He as of yet had no answer for this inexplicable phenomenon, though he was unlikely to ever find it. By trade he was unquestionably no scientist. He lacked the skills to pursue the issue, and so he left it unresolved, if begrudgingly.

"_Interesting…" _He rattled off after his noticeable silence, his gaze drawing back outward, towards the dangers and mysteries of the unknown.

"_Different…" _

The reply he received was mostly nonverbal, a hummed exhale that lingered in the wind as she leaned forward on the rampart. They were alone, the team of adolescents off somewhere causing trouble no doubt, and this particular stretch of wall bereft of guards till their next rotation. He had already made note of their timetables and composition, more a force of habit than of any genuine concern. Regardless, it proved useful for his desires for solitude, at least until she had arrived to disrupt his carefully won equilibrium.

Now the once welcomed silence had turned… uneasy.

B170, by the nature of his existence, did not socialize.

Yet here he was, trapped in an increasingly complex social snare. B170 was at the moment entirely unguided. He had no leadership, no Intel, and no understanding of his environment. This town offered safe harbor, though its longevity was soon to be in question. He could not stay here. He did not _want_ to stay here. There had to be an explanation for why he had been brought to this world, and he would not find it in Brittle Peak.

And as he lingered on his worried thoughts, the unsubstantiated silence was broken.

"You are a curious man, Lucan."

The spartan, lacking more the will than the means, left her statement to hang unmet in the air, brokered and unanswered.

Noticing that he was content to remain mute, she decided to voice her thoughts, and the conclusion she had reached after many hours of internal debate.

"You're… not from around here, are ya? I mean not to be rude, but there are a few inconsistencies with your story. You're military, that's obvious. That's about the only thing I'm certain of. But you are definitely not altesian, and they're the only ones advanced enough to even have a chance at making the armor you're wearing."

She huffed softly as she looked him up and down. "And that symbol on your chest, that doesn't belong to any kingdom, at least not one I know of. You're no faunus either. You don't smell like us. In fact you don't smell like any human I've met either. So in all, yeah, I'd say you're quite a ways from home."

Her words, bearing the slightest hint of accusation, were rebuffed by the silent spartan. Viridia looked upon the towering figure beside her, his gaze still drawn out to the vast swath of forest outside the town, and she sighed heavily in irritation.

"So… you're just not going to say anything?"

She waited then, for several minutes, standing and staring, and growing increasingly frustrated with his brick wall routine. She had many questions, and she would be damned if he wouldn't give her the answers. "Listen, Lucan. I've been very accommodating given the circumstances. But in return there has to be some kind of reciprocation here."

"Are you even paying attention?" She demanded after his continued disregard, a lupine ear flicking in agitation as she glared at the impassive countenance of the man next to her.

And at that, finally, she was able to produce some kind of reaction out of him. Her glare lessened as he turned to face her, though it shifted into an uncertain frown when she noticed his expression. His jaw was clenched tight, and there was a flicker of… something in the dull greyness of his eyes that stroked the primal chord of fear buried in her animal instinct.

"_I cannot give the answers you seek." _The giant intoned softly, and were it not for the underlining growl that seemed an integral part of his speech pattern, he might have sounded somewhat apologetic.

The faunus woman huffed. "Classified?" She muttered in a growl all her own.

Lucan shrugged the width of his considerable shoulders in a reply that was less than comforting for the increasingly cross huntress. There were no more words that needed to be said. And she could see from the impassive nature of his expression, that he had the resolve to make good on his silence.

"_Farewell, Miss Volkova."_ He grunted dismissively, somehow able to sound both condescending and sympathetic as he effectively told her to fuck off.

She watched the gigantic man beside her as he donned his helmet in a dexterous motion that implied practiced familiarity, and showed in that brief moment, a flicker of the lengthy tenure he had spent under the accruements of his profession. He turned, his lissome stride putting distance between them in a matter of moments.

Viridia let him go, as frustrated as he made her.

There was only so much blood you could draw from a stone.

* * *

B170 stepped off the battlements and into the crowds with a determined stride that saw the bulk of the throng disperse, like a tiger shark prowling through a shoal of fish. He marched with resolute purpose, though he had no destination in mind other than to put as much distance between himself and the huntress as possible, and there was not one in the multitude with the will to match him.

The spartan masked his contempt of the pusillanimous mob around him, knowing his scorn was born of unreasonable disdain. He was of a different breed than those he had given everything to protect. They were soft and meek willed, as they should be, he calculated with some difficulty. Their role was not to be the vanguard of humanity's salvation. That was a mantle he had taken with little regret, and it was unfair to uphold the common man to the same onerous principles.

And if his most recent hypothesis on the true disparity between him and the people of this world was correct, he had even less reason to be so contemptuous. Nevertheless, whatever his opinions were, he had worn out his stay here.

The spartan flicked open his TACPAD, scanning the newly downloaded GPS he had ripped from the woman's communications device while she had been distracted on their visitation of the city's prominent landmarks.

The technology was unfamiliar, but considering his substantial field knowledge in data mining and electronic warfare against the technologically superior Covenant, it had proven to be little challenge. And while he had been unable to glean any significant information from her comms device, he had copied the files for the local search engine and slaved it to his personal computing system. The patch was crude, but functional, and despite the rather unusual search history he had unwittingly recovered as residual records, there was no genuine drawback from his pirated download.

Now, he had everything he needed to move on the next phase of his most recent plan. Using the GPS and with a brief search, he was able to pinpoint his next objective. A border settlement like this would not provide the answers he was searching for. In order to have a chance at learning just where it was he had ended up, B170 intended to make for the capital city of this kingdom on the assumption that, as history had come to show, that the greatest stores of knowledge would be found in the heart of an empire.

"Excuse me sir, could I have a moment of your time?"

Both the kingdom and the capitol shared the same name, though he could not see the logic in such conventions. Yet his opinion was inconsequential. This world could keep its impossibilities and irregular naming proclivities. He had no intention pf staying here for longer than it took to reconnect with his superiors. The spartan diverted his efforts into the far more important process of planning the logistics of his expedition. He would need supplies. Food, weapons, ammunition, everything a soldier needed out in the field.

"Oh um… pardon me?"

However, there was a significant complication that interfered with his plans, stemming from a stark reality he had not considered.

B170 was destitute.

All provisioning and armaments had been provided and supplanted by the military, or unwilling aliens as the situation called. As a spartan operative, an individual that was not supposed to exist in public record, he never had a need for money before, and since he was the equivalent of a conscript, or insofar as much as a multibillion dollar investment could be called such a thing. B170 had never been a beneficiary of the economic system. It could be said, that his understanding of economics was only slightly less vague then his grasp of society as a whole.

"Oh jeez… uh… hello? Excuse me?"

To further complicate matters, he was entirely certain that he could be classified as an unregistered inhabitant of this abnormal world. He did not exist in whatever citizen registry they might have, and there was very real concern that by appearance alone he could be recognized as foreign, an issue that the Volkova woman had just brought to the forefront of his attention.

He was not unfamiliar with covert operations. His experience with the insurrection and extensive counter-terrorism background would be critical in his future operations on this planet. As ever however, there were complications. B170 knew what he would need, false identification, access to black-market dealers, and perhaps most importantly, an information broker. In the past he had relied on UNSC contacts and the far-reaching intelligence network provided by ONI.

Here, on this world, he had no such connections. This left him in somewhat of a difficult predicament.

The abrupt, and theatrically forced clearing of a nearby throat, dragged the spartan from his spiraling introspection. B170, a gauntlet brushing instinctively against his thigh for a sidearm that was not there, turned to the individual that had deliberately beckoned for his attention. He scanned immediately for any visible suggestion of a weapon, both with his own eyes and a quick switch of his VISR's software. Once verified that they were unarmed, he relaxed his shoulders and took a moment for a closer examination of the man that had gathered the nerve to interrupt his train of thought.

First impressions were not entirely kind, short for a local, frail figure on the border of sickly, and of a rather timid disposition. He was also, to B170's continued perplexity, a member of one of the seemingly endless faunus species, as made obvious by his second set of round ears and the ringed tail that weaved lazily behind him. Though what manner of animal lineage he bore, B170 failed to recognize. What he did recognize, was his unnecessary distraction.

The spartan turned away and continued walking down the street.

"Wait, please good sir!" The young man shouted his plea as he stumbled after the retreating figure of the armored giant, making a rather pitiable and conspicuous fool of himself in the morning crowd. The sight of the frail, small bodied faunus pursuing the armored colossus was indeed an uncommon vision to see in the tranquil streets of the small settlement.

B170, after a second appeal for his attention by the increasingly relentless faunus male, and upon noticing the attention this was garnering from the local populace, slowed his pace and turned. His stride lessened until he stood motionless, the crowd dispersing around him like waves crashing against a stone. He waited there, in the open, for the young man to reach him in an affronted huff.

And as he approached, the spartan crossed his arms, leaving a hand ready to grab the blade sheathed into his tactical harness. Appearance alone did not necessitate lowered guard. Often the worst terrorist actions had been performed by the most unassuming of individuals. However the idea of hacking down a random citizen was one he concluded that this town's law enforcement might take offense with.

"Oh… thank you… thank you." He gasped breathily, coming to a stop with his hands resting on his knees, back bent forward. "Not many people bother to even give the time of day to a faunus."

To that the spartan grunted bemusedly. _"You were rather… persistent." _

"Yes well…" The faunus muttered abashedly as he scrubbed his unruly mop of blonde hair. He trailed off, growing meeker under the silent, expressionless stare of the spartan's helmet. "A-Are you a huntsman, Sir?" He stuttered hopefully.

The spartan tilted his head back at the unadulterated presumptuousness of this man, even as he considered what he had been asked. Insofar as his limited knowledge came in to play, huntsmen were some form of specialized militia force, though what made them so exceptional he did not yet know. The man's question made him wary, if not curious as well.

"_If I were?" _He purposed inquisitively.

"I would ask for your services, if so." The faunus replied steadily, his precarious resolve affirmed as he exhumed a sheaf of paper from within his voluminous coat, flouncing it tentatively in B170's general direction.

Allowing his arms to uncross from their guarded posture under the impression that this was not a poorly conceived ambush, the spartan accepted the proffered documents with a raised brow, giving them a cursory examination as the man waited anxiously. The phrasing of the article was familiar, sparking faint memories of the compliance waiver he had signed as a child, although he had a far better understanding of litigation then he had twelve years ago.

If he was interpreting this correctly, and he was fairly confident he was, then the paperwork was a terms of service agreement for chartered protection. This led B170 to consider the increasingly dubious nature of these huntsmen. Were they protectors or simply guns for hire? The terms of the agreement as inscribed upon the form were of a more mercenary posture as one would expect to find with freelance ONI operatives.

For that only he was of a mind to disregard this man and his request. B170 was no huntsman, and he was certainly not a mercenary. He had his duty, and more obligations then could be sorted with a judicious application of an M41 LAAG. His priority was to return to his command and make a report of his findings on this world, however possible.

Yet as he noticed that there was a price to be paid upon completion, in foreign currency no less. He was reminded of his timorous position on Remnant, and his stark absence of inherent information about this planet and it population. If he was to survive he would need assets and connections. He needed access to resources and a solid base of support. And so it was, that with substantial disinclination, and a heavy sigh, he answered.

"_Very well…" _

"You'll take it? My request?" The faunus asked hopefully, not quite believing that the massive, obviously accomplished huntsman was willing to accept a request from someone like him. It'd been a shot in the dark at best.

"_So it would seem." _B170 relented with a decidedly fatalistic recognition of his fate. He didn't care to read into the terms too closely, both uninterested in the specifics and under the impression that it would not do him any favors regardless. All that concerned him, was that the man and his party would be traveling in the vague direction of the capital city of this kingdom, a fact he had gathered from his brief skim of the paper.

This would, as it were, kill two birds with one stone. And while the timing of this all stunk of foul play, he had no reason to actually be suspicious of this little man and his offer. There was no way the faunas could have known who he was, and if this was some attempt to kill him… well he had dealt with this sort before.

He glanced at the small, rail thin faunas, and nodded.

It would not take overlong.

"Well… uh, that's great!" The faunus exclaimed excitedly. "When… uh, when would you be ready to leave?"

The spartan arrived upon his answer as he turned his gaze to the walls of the small settlement, and the distant figure he had left behind.

"_Immediately."_

* * *

_AN: Here we are again with another chapter, I hope it continues to satisfy expectations. As For the LOTP Revision, I should have the next part out no later than next week., with maybe a little surprise for Until it is Done if I can squeeze that in there somehow. Also, I am near to closing up the next chapter for Faded Light, though that doesn't have a projected release confirmation. _

_As always, I am humbled for the interest you all take in my fan works, and any reviews, favs, and follows are always greatly appreciated. Does my heart nice and warm to read your input._

_Till__ Next time_

_Drake_


	4. Horizons

The word immediate as it so turned out, much to the spartan's limited bemusement and increasingly shortened patience, did not seem to be quite the same to his… employer as it was to him. There was nothing _immediate _about the long, drawn-out foot-dragging of their departure. And he was beginning to grow concerned that the young faunus male did not even know the definition of the word.

B170 wondered where the English language had so sharply divested itself from its roots but was forced to concede that insofar none of his plans were turning out to be in his favor. The slothful nature of their preparations was simply one of the many irritations he would have to endure in silent sufferance.

The spartan had been ready to depart as soon as possible. As a rule, he kept the entirety of his arsenal and provisions stowed in the Mjolnir's numerous integrated supply compartments recessed within the security of heavy plating, though their use was in actuality to store the superfluous materials he carried with him, maintenance tools for his weapons and armor, food packets, and whatever spare ammo he might scrounge out in the field. The Kevlar/titanium weave combat rigging on the exterior of his suit carried more directly advantageous supplies, ammunition for his ordnance, the meal package of the day, and as of now the grenades he had taken from the soldiers he had killed out in the wildlands.

The spartan mused on his past actions as he stood in the shadow of the courtyard outside one of the many inns and taverns that dotted along the main road, the centralized thoroughfare cutting a straight path from the gates to the heart of the town. He did not understand the architectural design from a military standpoint, as any attacker would have an avenue leading to the core of their defense should the gateway be lost. But he supposed for a civilian, they considered the ease of life and accessibility of the design to be worth the inherent risk.

Regardless, the tactical convenience of Brittle Peak's architecture should have by rights been far from his concern. However, it was directly a result of the indolence shown by his new employer that had given him time for such superfluous thoughts.

Employer….

Now that was a word he'd not had use for in years, not since his consignment to the Department of Colonial Security. Though this would be the first time he'd legitimately undertaken a mercenary contract. This little faunus boy was certainly no innie warlord, and as the moment went, he wasn't on mission for ONI.

In that case his _employers_ didn't tend to last long. There was no better-hidden blade than the one the target trusted most.

But that was a different time and a few worlds back, more than a few, judging by his current situation.

B170, eyes wandering the strategic display of his TACPAD as he mentally charted a course for _his _destination, turned an annoyed gaze outward to study the ostensibly perpetually nervous mien of the young faunus male that had acquired his services. This world was a complexity that not even his vast experience as an ONI headhunter had prepared him for. He'd come across many impossibilities in his career, mostly the unintended consequences of forerunner negligence. Their arrogance had populated the galaxy with time capsules of primeval horror and rampant technology, and late at night he often dwelled on his skirmishes with the ancient plague and the ephemeral remnant of abominable intelligences.

His files were as black as his ledgers were red.

After Reach, after the strongest, united force in human history failed, it had been up to the surviving spartans of all generations to pick up the pieces of their floundering species. Spartan operations had expended even as their numbers dwindled, lost to operations so filthy and mucked by compartmentalization and secrecy that not even he had the _authorization_ to recognize their loss. It had come to a point where he was unaware as to how many of his brothers and sisters were even still alive, and how many were simply ghosts in the machine, still scheduled on operations that had ended long ago.

He had made his peace.

A necessity, for the survival of their species, he told himself, in the dark hours between missions, in the silence.

He did not much enjoy the freedom between assignments.

He quelled the topic, returning it to the depths of his mind as always, focusing instead on the present and important. The past would not save him. Not here, where everything was senseless and born aloft on the wings of impossibility.

With all the insanity he had hunted across the galaxy, he'd never come across something as unrepentantly outlandish as this world. These creatures of Grimm, more esoteric than the abstruse detritus of calculating monsters and maddened machines that had lingered in the atrophied skeleton of ruins left barren since the days of the Ecumene. The faunus, a race of subhumans beyond the most advanced genetic sequencing projects known to earth and her colonies. And that was just the surface, what little he had gleaned information siphoned and categorized by the voracious data mining program he himself had designed.

He examined one such nonstarter, the boy playing the part of a half-concussed field mouse fairly impressively, furtively glancing about the street and wringing his hands with irritating restlessness. As far as the spartan understood, they were waiting for other members of this supposed caravan. Yet, as he carefully studied the packed streets for the thirtieth time in the past ten minutes, he was starting to doubt the veracity of this little man's claims. If his time was wasted, he was not certain he could contain his frustration.

Thus, here he stood, projecting his own path and planning his own journey, trying to distract himself from the looming encumbrance of past involvements. He ignored the idle gaze of the wandering townspeople. Having now come to believe that the UNSC, or even the insurrection, had no part to play in the policies of this world, the sight of a near eight-and-a-half-foot giant in black power armor was something a little more blatant than the usual eyesores. If he had any plans for subterfuge, he could comfortably deduce that such operations were off the table.

_Just another reason to wrap this town up sooner. _He groused, eyeing his contract holder with a terse frown.

The faunas, his desperation becoming even more apparent, shifted his attention back to the massive armored warrior lingering at the outskirts of the courtyard, taking shelter in the darkened shade cast by the looming edifice of the inn behind him. And as before upon seeing the undeniable presence of the towering soldier, some of his anxiety lessened, and the faintest trace of a smile passed briefly across his features.

The one under his stare however, did not share in his comfort.

Thankfully, before his patience was tested beyond its limitations, there was a commotion in the crowd. Taking the distraction for the break from monotony it was, B170 closed his TACPAD's case and rested a gauntlet upon his right forearm, atop the hidden compartment that concealed his second combat knife.

Although he was not expecting an attack, or any other form of danger, neither was he comfortable with his environment. B170 did not like crowds. He loathed them with a burning passion that boarded on abject hate. The spartan, as it so happened, found any form of jostling, hapless throng of humanity to be… exasperating. A bustling crowd was a revolutionary's wet dream. Hundreds, potentially thousands of individuals blending into a shapeless human collage, and the chaotic white noise generated by a churning mass of people going about their daily routine, assorted itself as the perfect smokescreen to conduct their sordid business. In such an environment it was possible to deceive even a spartan's heightened intuition and augmented reflexes.

Nevertheless, he was not expecting any insurgents to jump out and start shooting, and he had no concern over potential IEDs, not here on this utterly alien planet. His doubt of insurrectionist presence on Remnant had only grown more solid the longer he was stranded here.

No.

This world had bigger, _angrier_ problems.

With some effort, the spartan forced himself to relax, at least enough to lessen the tension in his shoulders. Instead of drawing a weapon, he took to studying the ragtag, questionably scrupulous group of individuals that appeared from within the multitude of wandering humanity to approach his employer. Then, the spartan sighed, much to his ever-rising vexation, wondering what it was he had done to deserve this relentless nightmare.

They were, from the tips of their ears to the full length of their tails, faunus, the whole lot of them. There were three in total, two females and one male, totaling in four with the inclusion of the one that first chanced upon him, and to B170's consternation, quite soft in appearance for such a dangerous undertaking.

He watched, with mounting hesitation from his relatively hidden position by the tavern entrance, as his employer threw off all his anxiety and rushed over to the group with arms wide open. Together they embraced, talking animatedly amongst themselves, eager as it seemed, to make up for lost time. As there was no hostile intent from the new party, and he was growing rather exasperated with their eager babbling, B170 flicked open his TACPAD and returned to his planning.

If things went south, it would be best to have a plan to get to Vale that did not rely on the trustworthiness of half-human hybrids he'd never seen before, though it would be unfortunate to lose out on the local currency. The journey was a four-day affair on foot, though he could have cut that down to twenty-four hours had he been on his own. As it was, he doubted that they'd arrive at his projected time.

These new individuals seemed unprepared for four days of hard travel on the road, especially in consideration of the world's unique and unquestionably hostile wildlife. That alone was a variable he had not yet calculated. How they were supposed to travel such a great distance without being brought low by a numberless horde of shadows, was a contingency plan he had yet to devise.

Yet it seemed that was a problem for the future, as he spied the faunus and his cohorts separate from the crowd and make their way back to the inn. The spartan shifted a portion of his attention towards them as he finished mapping the route they'd need to take. It had taken some effort to memorize the lay of the landmasses of this world, and he had not yet even had the chance to learn the nations and technology he would inevitably come into contact with. Thus far all his resources had been focused upon Vale, a nation whose borders he already resided within and its capital being the nearest. He'd have liked to have time to disseminate some of the raw data his computational software had been downloading and sifting through since he acquired the local operating system. But he had outstayed his welcome here, and he wished to leave before Volkova decided to press for answers regardless of his opinion on the matter.

And as the situation would have it, he was trying to keep from killing any more of the people on this world until he had at least some things figured out.

The spartan sighed as the young faunas that employed him split from his group and came to him alone. At least they should be moving now. And that was well and good since they'd already wasted half the day and he wanted to get a good start before nightfall.

"_Finally ready to depart, Sir?'" _He inquired, letting only a partial volume of his irritation ebb into his voice.

"Uh yes…" Timid as ever, the young faunus nodded hesitantly, gesturing to the small cluster of people that stared up in awe at the colossal man in black plate. "This is my family." He explained, answering a question B170 had no intention of ever asking. He cared little who they were as long as he could expect a payout at the end of this ordeal.

B170 exhaled heavily and stepped out of the building's shadow and towards the main street. He saw little reason to waste time with pleasantries. Fumbling awkwardly as their bodyguard stepped away without a word, the small group only moved to follow when he gestured over his shoulder and the motley band of faunus hurried to match his punishing gait.

"_We are wasting daylight." _He grunted, hoping to quell any questions that might arise. Already his mind was crunching numbers, consulting the solar calendar of this world and factoring the average walking speed capable of his constituents. They'd need to travel quickly if they were to make any sort of decent headway before nightfall. And while he doubted the Grimm – the spartan still tried to take the name of these creatures with any modicum of severity – were any of a kind, nocturnal or daytime predator, he would still rather engage them in broad daylight where the blackness of their forms was easier to discern from the terrain.

As he planned, he ignored the low conversation of the faunus party as they followed in his wake as unimportant, focusing only a small modicum of his attention to ensure that they were still with range of his movement and that they were not concocting anything nefarious. He trusted nothing in this world other than himself, and he had no qualms with cutting down women and children if they proved hostile. The insurrection thought to use such tactics to prey upon his susceptibilities as a moral human being.

They had been wrong.

There was nothing moral about war.

Victory at any cost. That was the _modus operandi_ for the Office of Naval Intelligence, and he just so happened to wholeheartedly believe in their methodology. The naïve thought war a gentlemen's game, with staunch rules and clear lines in the sand.

Idiotic.

Even before the Covenant began glassing worlds and feeding children to kig-yar and jiralhanae, humanity had been committing atrocities against itself. He had realized this the first time he had blown the brains out of the skull of a child strapped with a bomb vest in the filth laden streets of an insurrectionist held capital city. This epiphany on the brutality of existence had only gouged his soul deeper on _Koreban_, where he had waded through the larder of a jiralhanae labor camp on reconnaissance. A night spent buried amongst the butchered corpses of men, women, and children, some hanging from meat hooks like slabs of flesh in a butchery, the wails of the screaming and the dying drowned by the raucous revelry of brute warlords as they dined on the freshest of meat…

There were things not even a spartan could forget under force of will.

Nothing was sacred, all was permitted. There was no depth of depravity too deep for the enemy, whether they be human or alien was inconsequential. B170 took no risks and offered no mercy.

As such, he dropped his gauntlet down to his sidearm - the motion instinctive bearing in mind his lack of suitable ammunition - when the youngest female in the group branched off from who he assumed to be her mother, the action only just seen at the corner of his vision. He couldn't guess age, but then militants came in all ranges. If he'd have to wager, he'd place her in the upper bracket of adolescence, maybe fifteen, eighteen? Prime age for fighters and bomb carriers. The pair of floppy animal ears on her scalp did distract him somewhat, appearing almost cartoonish and so out of place for the bleakness of this world.

She approached his contract holder, maybe a young sibling or cousin, perhaps even a spouse, he knew nothing about this world's culture or proclivities. Whatever her denomination, she slugged him lightly in the stomach with her elbow, and he folded like a noodle.

B170's gait hitched for a microsecond as he prepared to respond, but he restrained his reprisal. The strike didn't seem overtly hostile, and none of the others appeared concerned about it. So instead he watched on curiously at a distance as she muttered in his ear as he wheezed like a perforated lung.

"So Sage, what's with the crazy altesian robot?"

"Robot?" The young faunus groaned in a mix of pain and confusion.

B170 grimaced at the insult. He had read little on the warrior machines of Atlas, the most advanced kingdom of this world, and the second objective of his quest. They thought themselves as the pinnacle of human achievement. He scoffed at the notion. They were pale imitations if anything. He had only a passing interest in their technologies, an interest that had cooled when he learned of their lack of success with interstellar travel.

"_I am not a machine, child." _He growled softly, his voice churning like rock tumbling down a mountain.

The girl's ears perked at his rough voice, and she stepped away from Sage, a name he knew he'd never use for a boy he had no intent on knowing beyond his importance as a potential meal ticket. She approached him, even as her mother reached out instinctively, the spartan finding some humor in her attempt to shield the child from the very man that was supposed to keep them safe. It was an action not unfamiliar, stoking memories of very rare moments spent in the bombed-out wreckage of fallen worlds turning to glass, a mass of destitute humanity at his back, and horde of religious intolerance at the fore.

Even in this abstruse world there were indistinct similarities.

He looked down the street, factoring that they had maybe four minutes before they reached the gate, and decided that he had enough time for this distraction. Ambush was unlikely and the real challenge would come once they left the safety of the city's fortifications.

"Okay then, _Mister Not-a-Machine_, you got a name?" She asked, skipping to match his unwavering stride.

"_Lucan, not that it matters." _He offered what he believed to at least be the bare minimum of niceties. After all the boy had never asked for his name and he had seen no need to correct a failing that held no interest. However, asked up front he also saw no need to withhold such trivial material. Even were she to attempt to look him up at his given name alone she'd never find information that did not exist.

"Well then, Lucan, don't suppose you could answer a question for me?"

He shrugged, indicating for her to proceed.

"Why'd such an obviously accomplished huntsman like yourself decide to babysit a couple faunus like us?" She pirouetted lazily, spinning about him as they approached the gate manned by a pair of men in makeshift armor, local auxiliaries most likely, not too different from the ones he'd seen on arrival. Thankfully he saw no sign of Volkova. Either the woman was reporting on him at this very moment, or she had given up on her attempts at information extraction. Either way she'd soon no longer be a concern of his. She made him uncomfortable, more than any reason he could potentially provide.

"_Work is work."_ He answered noncommittally. His decision had been spur of the moment and somewhat reckless for a spartan, but he hadn't seen many opportunities jumping at his attention either.

As they approached the gate one of the auxiliaries stepped forward, slowly, and rather apprehensively, the man standing nowhere near his shoulders. His second remained pinned to his post and made no effort to support his companion. "P-Papers for transit." The guard mumbled weakly, any attempt at authority in his voice passing into a whimper as he gazed up into the passive blood-red visor of the spartan's faceplate. Braver men had died spitting blood and profanities upon his impassive visage as the spartan gut them from pelvis to Adam's apple, though the man would be luckier to never learn that.

B170 extended his gauntlet with the sheaf of papers his contract holder had given. He'd delved into research on kingdom security policy while he had waited for his group to arrive, and knew that in order to be provided entrance or departure at any city one needed authorization. Of course, if you were one of these huntsmen however, their form of identification offered an all-access pass to almost anywhere on this world, and considering that he had arrived on this planet only a few days ago, he clearly did not have the permits. Being a spartan, he was used to the autonomy to go wherever and take whatever he needed.

On Remnant, his abilities were substantially handicapped, his strength was now his weakness. His bearing and appearance as a spartan, once a sight of power and authority, was now more alienating than it had ever been, and could and possibly already had, drawn the attention of certain powerful entities he had no intent on attracting. He had no delusion that he could match the culminated might of an entire city-state or their allies, at least not in open warfare.

However, such considerations were far above his current priority. Once in the capital, and with some modicum of local resources, he could begin to work on correcting the imbalance, and hopeful such efforts would help him find a way back home, though he as of yet had any idea as to how.

First step was to make it to Vale, and it so happened his employer had offered him the key.

The guard took the paperwork from his grasp, only partially paying attention to the bubbly faunus girl as she hummed and bobbed in place beside the towering suit of armor. Her brother? Husband? Seemed like he wanted to be anywhere else but here, and the couple at the back remained as silent and bemused as they had earlier. If they were the parents of these strange youths, then he did not envy them. What little memory of his family he possessed that was not blinded by the violence of their deaths, was enough for him to form an educated opinion.

These kids were an irritant.

Eying the script for a few seconds, he nodded to himself and offered it back, gesturing with his helmet to the set of doors across from his post. "Motor pool's that way, Sir. I'll radio down and have a truck waiting for you."

The spartan, confused, but unwilling to reveal his lack of basic knowledge, simply nodded and stuffed the paperwork back into a sachet in his armor. He crossed the paved thoroughfare under the yawning mouth of the gate, pushing open the far doors the guard had indicated, he entered the interior of the wall and held the way open for his charges.

The shuffled inside, the young female hoping over the weather-strip with the boy following after wearily. Next came in the parents, as he decided to name them, the woman even offering her thanks as she passed through.

The spartan nodded and took off down the hall. Given that it was following the contours of the settlement's ramparts, they were met with a winding corridor, that's gradual curvature blocked sight of its furthest point. The journey was bland, an endless stretch of naked concrete and dull ceiling lights that hung from rusted wires. The only thing to garner his notice, was the systematic interval of rectangular slots on the right-hand side, each sporting a small latch. Curious, he approached one and pulled, awarded with the sight of the grassy field outside the city.

B170 hummed to himself, moderately impressed by this unexpectedly rational design. Murder holes were a little quaint but he was certain, judging by the number of points he calculated, that any attacker, human or Grimm, would not find it nearly as humorous.

Closing the port, he continued on his way when he heard a voice.

"Hey, Lucan."

He looked to his side and for a brief moment, an older face with bright red hair and green eyes stared back at him. The spartan winced internally, the visage morphing once more into the youthful expression of the small faunus girl. He wondered to himself in the smallness of his idle thoughts, what it was that made the females of this bizarre human genetic offshoot so irritatingly verbose.

He grunted mildly, the young faunus somehow twisting his huff of irritation as approval to speak.

"How many Grimm have you killed?" Her question was voiced innocently, in the same tone as a child might ask their parents where babies came from. And to him he found the question as equally unpleasant as that. To be fair to the young girl, questions, in general, were viewed unfavorably by him at the best of times, and he had not been designed to handle the quirks of normalized society. He had been taught and molded to kill mankind's enemies and he had been tutored well. Answering trivialities spouted from the babbling mouth of a teenage female was a topic that had not been broached in spartan training. He had figured such a course had been lost somewhere amid rapid insertions into live-fire zones, and CQC drills.

Thankfully this time there was a reprieve.

"Sapphire honey… sweety," the adult male, presumably the father, reached out and placed an arm on her shoulder, "please don't pester the huntsman."

The girl pouted, her cheeks inflating like balloons as she glared at her father. But her anger vanished under his stern stare and she deflated, returning to her place beside him and her mother with a grumpy sigh and a kick of her heel on the bare concrete.

The spartan shifted his helmet to the father, who looked back at him and inclined his head ever so slightly. In turn, the man nodded and smiled, just slightly.

Perhaps it would not be too inconvenient to keep them alive.

They followed the length of the interior wall in silence for a few minutes longer without interruption, before a singular door appeared slowly at the end of the hall, thick pressed steel like the pressurized bulkhead on a destroyer. B170 stopped before it, the bulkhead near a foot taller than him, and grasped the lever, unlocking it with four swift rotations. The massive bolts shifted with a soft _thunk_ and he pushed it open, instantly hit by the sounds of hard labor and the high-pitched scream of industrial tools.

He pressed inside, once more holding the door open as he looked about the motor pool. It was rather impressive, maybe a full kilometer long and lined with various vehicles, most appearing to actually be better armored than most UNSC IFV's. There were a few engineers and technicians about, burly men and women standing on or under the machines, filling the cavernous chamber with their noise.

Scanning the area, he found a room built into the nearby wall, its metal construction appearing flushed tight against the wall and looking out of place. This, was something familiar, and he approached it quickly. The man in the booth, behind a thick pane of reinforced glass, perked up when he noticed the giant in armor, closing the auto magazine he had been sifting through. As the spartan advanced he laughed, his voice rough, undoubtedly from shouting over the din of the workers, and more incriminatingly, the half-burned cigar in the ashtray on his desk.

"Hah, Banner wasn't taking the piss after all." He muttered to himself, still chuckling. He leaned forward, the wheels of his chair creaking as he eyed the spartan up and down. "You must be here for the truck eh?"

"_Yes." _The spartan answered bluntly. The silence that lingered after indicative that there would be no further articulation.

The man's smile widened. "Bit of a no-nonsense are ya? That's cool. Was rather interested in my mag anyway so I'll be quick."

B170 stared at the man in the booth as he shuffled about, knocking open various lockers on the wall as he sifted through the disorganized arrangement of key fobs. Pushing several to the side, he hummed as he selected one from the mess. "S'good enough, I suppose. Heading to Vale, right? Shouldn't be too far of a drive. I'm sure she can handle it."

He turned about, dropped the set into the tray, and pushed it to the opposite side.

B170 looked down, picking up the small key fob, and studying it. Most UNSC vehicles were push to start, kept it simple, and prevented mix-ups in the heat of battle. But he knew what fobs were, having utilized more than a few civilian vehicles during the pullback on Reach.

The spartan looked back, past the gaggle of faunus, and pressed the button, watching one of the armored vehicles in the farther rows as lights flickered on and its engine rumbled to life. It was massive, able to fit the faunus family, himself, and probably five more people, six-wheel suspension, more than a foot of armor, and an emplaced weapon on the roof, belt-fed, probably in the fifty-caliber rang. B170 grinned. If there was anything a spartan was passionate about, it was military ordnance.

This was much better than walking.

"Hey…"

He turned away from his prize, already trying to figure out a way to ensure that it never arrived at the motor pool in Vale, and looked back at the man in the booth.

The man smiled tightly, glancing to the rather vulnerable looking family beside him. "Good luck out their huntsman. Make sure they get through safe, eh?"

The spartan nodded, though he was in disagreement with the man's concern. A spartan, with an IFV?

_I don't need luck_.

XX-XX-XX

Viridia watched from the ramparts as the armored caravan car gunned out of the motor pool, rolling up the ramp at high speed, getting in some decent air time before slamming back down to the ground. The engine of the machine roared as tires dug into dirt, sending out a spray of topsoil as the treads bit and kicked underneath it.

The vehicle took off down the road, carrying away the greatest question of her entire career. She sighed, disappointed somewhat in herself, for not pushing harder, for not getting the answers she wanted. In that she had the comfort of logic to ease her bitterness. She knew that there had been no way such a line of thought would not end in violence, and despite belief in her skill and her semblance, one look at him and she wasn't afraid to admit she wasn't quite sure she could take him in a one-on-one fight. Nor did she want to. He wasn't a bad guy, despite what her instincts screamed at her.

He just seemed lost, and was definitely carrying around a lot of baggage underneath that armor.

Viridia grinned, though her smile was absent of any humor.

She had to give it to him, for a man that was as lost as he professed to be, he sure as shit didn't waste any time. There was that much to respect about him. A day after he stumbled in town, a step away from death, and there he was, blasting away into the sunset inside an armored personnel carrier. He was not a person who did things by half, it seemed.

Even so, despite her irritation, she could not but feel guilty as she opened her scroll and placed a call.

The device trilled thrice, before the call connected and a face appeared on the screen, a man with pale silver hair and a neutral expression that twisted into a quizzical smile under his bespectacled reflection.

"Viridia, I must admit your call was unexpected, but I am always glad to hear from one of my students, though I suppose it's not quite right to call you that after all these years."

"Headmaster." She smiled. She'd made good memories at Beacon. And while it seemed strange to other academies, Ozpin always kept in touch with his students, and she'd come to him with more than a few questions in the years after graduation.

"Are you doing well? I must admit I always get a little anxious when old students call me after such extended silence."

"I'm fine, Sir. And so are the kids you dropped on me," She added with a wry laugh.

"Ah yes of course I have complete faith in you my dear… and just maybe now you'll respect the patience your teachers had with you during your tenure." He added with a soft chuckle.

"Yes, I suppose we should have been a little easier on Miss Goodwitch, I hope you'll send her my vicarious apologies."

"I'll field it through the proper channels."

"Good…" Viridia trailed off, wanting to but unable to find the nerve to broach the topic she had called about.

Viridia heard Headmaster Ozpin sigh. "I suppose this is a little more than a social call?"

"Y-Yes, Sir…" She murmured awkwardly. She struggled to find the right words, and when she did finally say something, she immediately regretted it ever leaving her mouth.

"I… met a man yesterday."

"Oh my, Viridia." His eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. "I do hope he's a nice fellow. You haven't called to have… _the talk,_ have you? Because as your once headmaster I must admit it might not be my place. I'm sure your father can help you there."

She frowned, barely resisting the urge to smash a palm into her forehead. "No, Sir, nothing like that." Gods, this was just like being back at Beacon. Despite his aloofness, many students knew Ozpin to be quite the trickster. Taking a deep breath, she focused her thoughts, and she told him everything.

Viridia watched as all humor left the headmaster, and he became very serious.

And deep inside, she could not help feeling that this was a betrayal. Something told her that tonight, sleep would not come easy.

* * *

_AN: Dropping an update for you, though not on any of my more recent works, and certainly shorter than originally intended. But this seemed like a good enough place to wrap up a chapter. __Been in a bit of a rut lately, since this whole virus thing has put me out of work, which is kinda not ideal but whatever. Hopefully the next thing I'll post will be an update for Legacy, which is about probably a third of the way done. I know people are more interested in that then my side stuff, but I don't own my muse. She owns me. I'm just along for the ride. _

_At the end of the day, it just feels good to be doing **something**, and I hope you that this might entertain you at least for a little while we waste away in our homes. Stay safe and don't forget to read and review._

_Drake_


End file.
